John Ralston Saul
On Equilibrium
Six Qualities of the New Humanism

"His vision is both noble and realistic. Saul has something to say about complexity, uncertainty and our ways of dealing with it. Try taking a walk in his woods." —Calgary Herald

What are the qualities that make us human?
How conscious are we willing to be of our humanness?

In On Equilibrium, award-winning author John Ralston Saul explores what it takes to create balance in life, particularly now during times of war and political unrest and while the world debates the ongoing ethics of globalization. He identifies six qualities that give humans the ability to act responsibly: common sense, ethics, imagination, intuition, memory, and reason. Through these qualities, Saul suggests, we have the ability to shape events rather than be shaped by them. When an individual asks, but what can I do? Saul would say, you can do plenty.

On Equilibrium presents us with an essential how-to of the ways ideas can translate into action. Saul explains how six qualities give us the intelligence, self-confidence, and ability to act as responsible individuals and citizens of the world. It is crucial, argues Saul, that all six be used in combination with each other. And Saul shows how to use these qualities as positive forces and how to use them so each builds upon the other to reinforce our very humanness.

Written in a popular, easy-to-understand style, this is a groundbreaking and persuasive exploration of the human struggle for personal and social balance. How can this impossible but necessary reaching for equilibrium help each of us to rediscover ethics as a normal habit? What does this mean for an ethical society? Why are intuition and memory among essential qualities which in turn help us to use our ethics? On Equilibrium is at once an attack on our weakness for ideologies and a manual for humanist action.

Novelist, historian, economist and philosopher John Ralston Saul has won the Governor General's Award for nonfiction and is the author of several novels on contemporary political and moral issues. His philosophical trilogy Voltaires Bastards, The Doubters Companion, and The Unconscious Civilization has had significant impact on political thought in many countries. He lives in Ottawa, where he was born.

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