The Elephant in the Room: Silence and Denial in Everyday Life

by Eviatar Zerubavel

Book Overview

The fable of the Emperor's New Clothes is a classic example of a conspiracy of silence, a situation where everyone refuses to acknowledge an obvious truth. But the denial of social realities--whether incest, alcoholism, corruption, or even genocide-is no fairy tale.

In The Elephant in the Room, Eviatar Zerubavel sheds new light on the social and political underpinnings of silence and denial-the keeping of "open secrets." The author shows that...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195187172
• ISBN13: 9780195187175
• Release Date: April 2006
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 3.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.8" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Good but brief foray into neglected topic

I agree with other reviewers that possibly the biggest caveat to give about this book is that only 87 pages of the total 162 are the actual text, the other 75 pages are endnotes, a bibliography, and the index. So the almost $15 price tag may seem steep. However, I'm not sure why some reviewers (here and at other places) are making that big of a deal out of this. I mean, we frequently come across edited works where we say of just one essay in the book, "So and so's essay alone was worth the price of the book." Indeed, the majority of these lauded essays are less than 87 pages! So, if you're really into the psychology and sociology (and even the epistemology) of denial, perhaps the content will be worth the price of the book. In fact, isn't that what we really want in a good book? Good content? Surely people wouldn't rave over a book that was 1,000 pages long of meaningless fluff. So I think some make too much of this fact. Still, it's only fair to point out that you're getting less than 100 pages of content with this book. But, it's also fair to point out that good content is necessarily qualitative and not quantitative. Besides this minor agreement, I have more substantive disagreements with some of the reviews (here and elsewhere) I've read. It is simply false that Zerubavel (Board of Governors Professor of Sociology at Rutgers University) just uses illustrations from literature and movies to make his points. He appeals just as much, or more, illustrations from history, every day social interactions (in the family, workplace, and marketplace), and a wide range of other substantive contexts. The reasons he uses such wide-ranging illustrations is "in order to emphasize the distinctly generic properties of conspiracies of silence" (14). Furthermore, others complained that Zerubavel was to abstract in his illustrations, that he was too general. But this is an odd criticism considering Zerubavel discusses it on pages 14-16. Zerubavel claims to be writing on a topic which he claims has been ignored, especially in his field. The sociology of noticing has received a lot of attention, but not the sociology of ignoring. Thus Zerubavel claims that in order start analyzing universal social processes the sociologist must justify his claim to generality by testing his thesis in diverse contexts, connecting facts previously treated as unrelated, thus identifying common patterns in diverse, both geographically and temporally, culturally specific events (cf. 14-15). It is a wonder, therefore, why people would bring this aspect of Zerubavel's book up as a criticism, especially without interacting with his stated justification of the matter! The final critique of the book that I take issue with is that some people think they can trap Zerubavel in some kind of self-referential incoherency. They ask how he can write a book on the sociology of silence about and ignoring of proverbial elephants in the room since to do so he has to speak about it and not ignore it. T

The Elephant left the room a little too early.

I originally heard the author being interviwed on NPR and was intrigued by the topic. Mr. Erubavel aptly laid out the "elephants" that he would discuss. His topics were right on the mark and every reader can identify with one of his examples either through personal or through a family member or friend's experience. When I finished reading the book, I wanted to hear more about "how to" discuss these secrets especially when people seeking answers or resolution before a loved one dies. I see this a lot working around hospice patients and their families. Often long after the death of a friend ora family member; there is still unfinished business amongst the survivors and that "elephant" perhaps has grown even larger in size.

Great little book

As the child of a family that hid everything, it is refreshing to read a book that values the truth!