“Please-speak not too loudly of your dearly-held opinions or the passions of your experience. Speak softly of those. I question your opinions - and your experiences will never be mine, nor mine yours - no matter how we tell them. So…speak of them…please…but gently. I want to talk with you. Come on - let’s go-you and I to a confessional place – tell of ignorance, yours and mine. Admit it now. Don’t deny it. Then we’ll climb. You’ll see. There’s a ‘high green land’ – where thought and Being are the same – and so are we. It’s too steep to climb – all the way. But we can try – see how high.”

'Brad' is the central character and first-person narrator of Professor Mahoney's new novel, The Great Despiser. A nineteen-year-old student, he is on a determined quest for authentic communication. At first glance, this may seem a simple matter; but the obstacles are many. In these days of change and rapid innovation, our lives have changed. The world has become a smaller place. Technologies have put us in touch. That's true. But what's the trade-off? Along with all the material progress, has come a dreadful dehumanization. Never has the world been so connected and yet so disconnected. With attitudes and mind-sets constantly screaming,

"Why ask why?" we are driven apart by our lack of understanding. This book presents a long-term solution---'dialectical discourse'---a way of talking, in depth, about even our most sensitive differences---without arguing. Nothing could be more challenging. Nothing could be more urgently needed.