A worthy primer in turning perception on its head to see ourselves afresh.
A course in learning how to see ourselves with greater clarity, via reflections from the world around us.
Organizational behaviorist Gemmill and psychologist Kraus ask what we conceal from our awareness–what underdeveloped talent or overexercised weakness? In a word, plenty, and they contend that we can detect these qualities in our experiences with other people in our lives–that our concealed parts are reflected right back at us in these associations as a mirror might, though we’re frequently oblivious to this. Since these unseen behavioral traits influence our life choices, the authors write, ignorance is hardly bliss. Like skating backwards, learning to decipher ourselves in others–and in some cases, our reactions to things–is difficult to teach, but Gemmill and Kraus provide plainspoken examples and exercises to mark the path. They recommend starting with projection, in which we unconsciously place onto others our positive and negative attributes. They take a simple but highly illustrative tack–to ask oneself the question, “What do I like best about this person? What do I like least?” Then apply the answer to yourself and be open to resonances, the radiation of disowned parts. They explore the shadows of negativity, desirable auras, the ambiguities of magical thinking, scapegoating and the power of authority. Readers on a self-guided quest may be disappointed in the chapter on emotions–a profoundly difficult voyage of self-discovery. The process of “looking at our emotions without looking away or trying to rationalize them” is complex, and not accompanied by much guidance. This part of the journey, the authors note, especially requires us to seek others’ help. Still, Gemmill and Kraus introduce a gratifyingly wide sampling of good literature to get readers started–from the Oracle at Delphi to Carlos Castaneda, and Jungian psychoanalysts to the Appalachian Expressive Arts Collective.
A worthy primer in turning perception on its head to see ourselves afresh.Pub Date: June 24, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4392-1751-1
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...
Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.
The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.
A follow-on to the author’s garbled but popular 48 Laws of Power, promising that readers will learn how to win friends and influence people, to say nothing of outfoxing all those “toxic types” out in the world.
Greene (Mastery, 2012, etc.) begins with a big sell, averring that his book “is designed to immerse you in all aspects of human behavior and illuminate its root causes.” To gauge by this fat compendium, human behavior is mostly rotten, a presumption that fits with the author’s neo-Machiavellian program of self-validation and eventual strategic supremacy. The author works to formula: First, state a “law,” such as “confront your dark side” or “know your limits,” the latter of which seems pale compared to the Delphic oracle’s “nothing in excess.” Next, elaborate on that law with what might seem to be as plain as day: “Losing contact with reality, we make irrational decisions. That is why our success often does not last.” One imagines there might be other reasons for the evanescence of glory, but there you go. Finally, spin out a long tutelary yarn, seemingly the longer the better, to shore up the truism—in this case, the cometary rise and fall of one-time Disney CEO Michael Eisner, with the warning, “his fate could easily be yours, albeit most likely on a smaller scale,” which ranks right up there with the fortuneteller’s “I sense that someone you know has died" in orders of probability. It’s enough to inspire a new law: Beware of those who spend too much time telling you what you already know, even when it’s dressed up in fresh-sounding terms. “Continually mix the visceral with the analytic” is the language of a consultant’s report, more important-sounding than “go with your gut but use your head, too.”
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-42814-5
Page Count: 580
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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