Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Preview

£0.00 for first 30 days

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

The Ordinary Virtues

By: Michael Ignatieff
Narrated by: Michael Ignatieff
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £17.99

Buy Now for £17.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Summary

What moral values do human beings hold in common? As globalization draws us together economically, are our values converging or diverging? In particular, are human rights becoming a global ethic? These were the questions that led Michael Ignatieff to embark on a three-year, eight-nation journey in search of answers. The Ordinary Virtues presents Ignatieff's discoveries and his interpretation of what globalization - and resistance to it - is doing to our conscience and our moral understanding.

Through dialogues with favela dwellers in Brazil, South Africans, and Zimbabweans living in shacks, Japanese farmers, gang leaders in Los Angeles, and monks in Myanmar, Ignatieff found that while human rights may be the language of states and liberal elites, the moral language that resonates with most people is that of everyday virtues: tolerance, forgiveness, trust, and resilience. These ordinary virtues are the moral operating system in global cities and obscure shantytowns alike, the glue that makes the multicultural experiment work. Ignatieff seeks to understand the moral structure and psychology of these core values, which privilege the local over the universal and citizens' claims over those of strangers.

Ordinary virtues, he concludes, are anti-theoretical and anti-ideological. They can be cheerfully inconsistent. When order breaks down and conflicts break out, they are easily exploited for a politics of fear and exclusion - reserved for one's own group and denied to others. But they are also the key to healing, reconciliation, and solidarity on both a local and a global scale.

©2018 Michael Ignatieff (P)2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

Call Them by Their True Names cover art
In Denial cover art
We Gon' Be Alright cover art
The Point of It All cover art
State of Emergency cover art
Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here cover art
Children of Paradise cover art
United cover art
Moyers on Democracy cover art
Travel as a Political Act cover art
Great Peacemakers cover art
Travelling While Black cover art
In the Shadow of Statues cover art
Stop Mass Hysteria cover art
Faces at the Bottom of the Well cover art
A Thousand Hills cover art

What listeners say about The Ordinary Virtues

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    5
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    4
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    5
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Thought-provoking, yet tangible insights.

I thought the aim and methodology for the content of this book were insightful. Brilliantly written by Michael Ignatieff with the bonus of having his wonderful narration. I imagine I will listen to this many time; so much to ponder, to reframe and shape thinking.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Important and impressive

Great book and narration. Mr Ignatieff's messages should be widely received to make a better world.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!