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CONVERSATIONS WITH A PEDOPHILE

IN THE INTEREST OF OUR CHILDREN

The veracity of these revelations must be taken on faith, but, still, they have the ring of very scary truth.

A convicted and now remorseful pedophile explains how he selected his victims, earned their parents’ confidence, and then manipulated the youngsters’ emotions to gain control over them.

In the late 1980s, Hammel-Zabin, a music therapist working inside a maximum-security prison, came to know the pedophile identified here only as “Alan.” Then in his late 50s, Alan was serving multiple life sentences for the sexual abuse of young boys. Hammel-Zabin had been sexually abused as a child by her father and grandfather, leading her to reflect the points of view of both perpetrator and victim. Chapters labeled “Alan” contain material gleaned from some ten years of his correspondence and conversations with the author; those labeled “Amy” contain her reflections on his words as well as her own incest story, which regrettably adds little to our understanding of that phenomenon. The text’s most compelling and disturbing portions by far are Alan’s descriptions of his development as a pedophile and of his methods. The fantasies that engaged him from a very early age gradually escalated into obsessions that he acted out. At 14, he used the Boy Scouts as a way to hang around 10- and 11-year-olds without arousing suspicion, and as an adult he involved himself in church activities and scouting as a safe cover for his activities. He describes how he became his victims’ confidante and how he ensured that they would not tell on him, even when the abuse reached horrendous levels. This is the stuff of parents’ nightmares, but Hammel-Zabin argues that only by understanding pedophilia can we protect children from it. The final chapters discuss what parents can do to ensure that their children do not become vulnerable to those who would prey on them. The more difficult question of what can be done about the predators remains unanswered here.

The veracity of these revelations must be taken on faith, but, still, they have the ring of very scary truth.

Pub Date: May 14, 2003

ISBN: 1-56980-247-5

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Barricade

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2003

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THINKING, FAST AND SLOW

Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...

A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.

The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.

Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011

ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1

Page Count: 512

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011

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THE LAWS OF HUMAN NATURE

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

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