A Look Back to See Ahead: Our Chronic Culture Viewed from the 1970's May 24, 2007 edition

In A LOOK BACK TO SEE AHEAD, Dr. Fisher argues that early twenty-first century America is not unlike the 1970s when young people were forced to participate in an unpopular war; when political upheaval was in the air; when corrupt politicians who lied and deceived the electorate reached a crescendo with Watergate; when drugs were ruining lives; when morality took a holiday; when new forms of bigotry and hatred were hatching; when the automotive industry was in sharp decline, while foreign automakers were eating our lunch; when an energy crisis rocked the land with OPEC's oil embargo; when a paranoid president hunkered down and became a law unto himself; when Congress stayed the same, missed the changes, wouldn't face them, and left the future up for grabs. Sound familiar?Well, it should because today we are stuck in the 1970s, and haven't found a way to be unstuck. Dr. Fisher brings these facts to the fore and lays down some guidelines for dealing with this by looking back to where we've been to see why we are stuck where we are. He cuts through the psychobabble to show that talent is not enough to find happiness; nor is a winning personality with its many masks enough to ensure success. Each of us must find emotional balance in an irrational world because as he puts it, "the heart can get us into a lot more trouble than the head."The world as it was some thirty years ago is shown with people chasing safety while not moving forward at all. He asks, "Has it or we changed? If not, why not?"This book breaks through our cool fa¿ade, canned rhetoric, and mania for being insiders with such chapters as the "wisdom of insecurity" and "movement to sense from nonsense." Dr. Fisher chides the reader to give up the obsession with the future and find fulfillment in the present. He shatters the big lie that science holds the key to our wellness, as it is not immune to the same disease. Only we can unlock that door. The book is an invitation to do just that.