Fatal Abstractions2004

"Fatal Abstractions: The Parallogics of Everyday Life concludes Professor Thompson's "Hestia Trilogy." Adopting the analytic lenses of the Hestian/Hermean Dual Systems Paradigm, proposed in the trilogy's two previous volumes, the trilogy critiques paradigms that are biased in favor of the political at the expense of the familial. Professor Thompson challenges conventional "ways of seeing" the private/public and expands the metaphor of the double helix of everyday life to include the parallogics of the dual domains of human action. She invites the reader to compare and contrast homeplace/marketplace activities from a dual systems - instead of a gender - perspective. She suggests that the domestic/civic aspects of everyday life be recognized as co-responsible options and offers a case study of the demise of a hestian home economics department in the hermean environment of higher education to illustrate her points. The book concludes with a Hestian feminist plea for domestic literacy based on a reappraisal of "hearth and home" in antiguity and modernity. Professor Thompson suggests that a gender-equitable approach in the private/public demands of everyday life is an esential first step to achieving a "new humanism" in the new millennium."--Jacket.