Against The Grain

About the Book

At any given time a significant percentage of conventional wisdom is incorrect. Future generations will contemplate with wonder how such fallacies could have been believed. Our decendants will honor most those of us who can identify and correct present misconceptions, just as we honor most of our forbearers who creatively defined the truths which now guide us. Most intellectual effort is devoted to mastering bodies of existing knowledge. This is the approval of society generally and the educational establish?? particularly most reliably obtained?? Furthermore, adherence to an established existing structure provides a security most people require. “Against the Grain” is devoted to the concept that there is a greater intellectual challenge in defining a validity which is contrary to the conventional view. To seek truth one must not only learn what is taught, but also be skeptical enough to perceive the possible of what is taught. Every reader has his own set of verities that have guided his professional, religious, social, political and family life. The author has attempted to speak against the grain of those verities which have touched upon his life as a Jew, a lawyer, a parent, spouse and community leader. Hopefully each reader will find it rewarding either to identify with what his life has in common with the author’s, or to project the author’s way of thinking to the different issues in his own life.

About the Author

Prior to Against the Grain, Richard D. Kuhn has authored several articles in professional journals and has written a variety of non-professional subjects for local newspapers from time to time. Writing a more complete work has offered the prospect of embarking on a new career, when, after 45 years of professional practice, “retirement” is the norm. The author is a graduate of Columbia College and Columbia Law School, is a partner in the New York City law firm of Kuhn and O’Toole, LLP, and resides in Princeton, New Jersey, with his wife of 41 years, Perla, who is also a lawyer. Two of their three sons are lawyers, one a partner of the author. He has been active in amateur music activities, has been a proficient multi-sport athlete, has been devoted to charitable work and has been a leader in the Jewish community in his native Staten Island, where the fifth generation of his family is residing.