For Moral Ambiguity

Under the banner of family values, a war of more than words is being waged. At stake is the control of contemporary national culture-and the consciousness of succeeding generations. Michael J. Shapiro enters the fray with this galvanizing book, which exposes the assumptions, misconceptions, and historical inaccuracies that mark the neoconservative campaign to redeem an imagined past and colonize the present and future with a moral and political commitment to the "traditional family." Challenging the neoconservative assumption of a natural relation between a historically constant, traditional family structure and civic life, Shapiro shows how the situation of the family in relation to public life has emerged differently in different historical periods. For Moral Ambiguity juxtaposes moralizing versus historically sensitive, critical treatments of familial and public attachments, revealing how "the family"-as represented in historical and contemporary fiction, cinema, television, and other genres and media-emerges as a contingent cultural and historical structure. Shapiro treats the ways in which family space, however changeable, serves as a critical locus of "enunciation"-as a space from which diverse family personae challenge the relationships and historical narratives that support dominant structures of power and authority and offer ways to renegotiate the problem of "the political." By extending recognition to less heeded voices and genres of expression, he seeks to frame the political within a democratic ethos. Ultimately, the book compels us to understand "the political" as the continuous negotiation of different modes of civic presence.

She just wants to be loved... by the one man who is not capable of feeling it. A CUTE PSYCHO Charming and unpredictable, Vlad Kuznetsov is known as the joker of the underground world. Known to many yet known by none, he is a true social chameleon. His feigned affability might present him as inoffensive but his inner demons could unleash a bloodbath at any time. With a past shrouded in mystery, and even more secretive intentions, Vlad's journey can only end one way - in blood. A MISBEHAVING NUN Assisi Lastra might be named after a saint, but her disposition is anything but saintly. Years of cold discipline in the convent she called home embittered her towards the world. Conditioned to strive for goodness, Sisi struggles between her natural wicked inclinations and the unnatural expectations placed upon her. One chance encounter with an unusual man, and all her inhibitions are thrown out the window. Two unlikely people tangled together in the waltz of death; they are one step away from falling off the precipice. And each choice they make brings them closer to the edge. But in the end, only they can decide - to stop or to jump? BLOOD LOST. BLOOD SPILLED. BLOOD WON. For blood is the beginning, and blood is the end. Morally Ambiguous is a 260,000 word full-length novel and the fourth book in the Morally Questionable Series. It is NOT a standalone and must be read in order. Please check the triggers before proceeding!

From the groundbreaking author of The Second Sex comes a radical argument for ethical responsibility and freedom. In this classic introduction to existentialist thought, French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir’s The Ethics of Ambiguity simultaneously pays homage to and grapples with her French contemporaries, philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, by arguing that the freedoms in existentialism carry with them certain ethical responsibilities. De Beauvoir outlines a series of “ways of being” (the adventurer, the passionate person, the lover, the artist, and the intellectual), each of which overcomes the former’s deficiencies, and therefore can live up to the responsibilities of freedom. Ultimately, de Beauvoir argues that in order to achieve true freedom, one must battle against the choices and activities of those who suppress it. The Ethics of Ambiguity is the book that launched Simone de Beauvoir’s feminist and existential philosophy. It remains a concise yet thorough examination of existence and what it means to be human.

"I sometimes like to daydream that if we were all somehow simultaneously outed as lechers and perverts and sentimental slobs, it might be, after the initial shock of disillusionment, liberating. It might be a relief to quit maintaining this rigid pose of normalcy and own up to the outlaws and monsters we are"--

Alternate Paperback Cover A Resolute Playboy Groomed from a young age to become the leader of a mafia empire, Enzo Agosti's life has been nothing but a series of luxurious one-stops around the globe in search of hedonistic gratification. Cold and domineering, his dazzling looks are his secret weapon--women fall at his feet; and men want to be him. But behind the mask of opulence lay the ruins of a cynic, a man used to the dark solitude of the flashy public life, and a misanthrope weaned on bloody, depraved lullabies. A Caged Tiger Timid and meek, Allegra Marchesi has always played the dutiful daughter. Though locked in a cage designed to stifle her knowledge and keep her in ignorant bliss, Allegra is every jailor's nightmare--she can think and act for herself. And like every prisoner, she has one goal--freedom. Yet she is but a woman in a man's world, and she is quick to find out that far from absolute, there are degrees to freedom. And love might not be part of the equation.Is she willing to trade one cage for another? Intrigue. Obsession. Decadence. A hate that bubbles just beneath the surface, it takes one woman to bring Enzo to his boiling point. Yet the intensity of his explosive emotions might very well prove to be the end of them both. Morally Decadent is an enemies-to-lovers dark mafia romance that spans over a decade. There is NO cheating and the book ends with a HEA for the couple but with a cliffhanger for the series. It is best enjoyed if Morally Corrupt and Morally Blasphemous are read first. Please check the triggers before proceeding!

World War II was the quintessential “good war.” It was not, however, a conflict free of moral ambiguity, painful dilemmas, and unavoidable compromises. Was the bombing of civilian populations in Germany and Japan justified? Were the Nuremberg and Tokyo war crimes trials legally scrupulous? What is the legacy bequeathed to the world by Hiroshima? With wisdom and clarity, Michael Bess brings a fresh eye to these difficult questions and others, arguing eloquently against the binaries of honor and dishonor, pride and shame, and points instead toward a nuanced reckoning with one of the most pivotal conflicts in human history.

Why do people turn to personal connections to get things done? Exploring the role of favors in social welfare systems in postwar, postsocialist Bosnia and Herzegovina, this volume provides a new theoretical angle on links between ambiguity and power. It demonstrates that favors were not an instrumental tactic of survival, nor a way to reproduce oneself as a moral person. Instead, favors enabled the insertion of personal compassion into the heart of the organization of welfare. Managing Ambiguity follows how neoliberal insistence on local community, flexibility, and self-responsibility was translated into clientelist modes of relating and back, and how this fostered a specific mode of power.