A thoughtful blend of social and biological science, history, economics, and sometimes contrarian politics.
A flinty look at a culture and economy based on the premise that there are points to be scored and dollars to be made by shaming people.
“Shame is a policing tool,” writes data scientist and mathematician O’Neil, “and it has been one since the first clans of humans roamed the savannas of Africa.” As a means of reinforcing taboos and social norms, shame has its uses. Yet, as O’Neil gamely writes, there’s a “shamescape” at work, “always brimming with opportunity.” If there’s a diet on the market, there’s a huckster out there to flog it, always playing on the shame of a person who believes they are heavier than what cultural and social norms consider acceptable. In one of O’Neil’s most unpleasantly pointed examples, she examines the whisper-of-shame subeconomy surrounding female genitalia and the horror that an odor might be detected. Lysol, she notes, was originally marketed in a campaign that “shamed half of humanity for the by-products of a functioning reproductive system” and was laced with chemicals that caused burns and even death. Our sexual organs, she writes, “generate profound fears and insecurities within us. Even in these more sexually liberated times we tend to envelop them in secrecy.” O’Neil takes a philosophical turn in her discussion of the acceptability of shaming, arriving at a standard whereby those who can do nothing about a condition should be shielded whereas those who might be able to adjust—incels, for one, who “are not hermetically sealed off from the rest of the world”—might understandably weather a few shame-based nudges to grow up. Whether it’s smoking in public, masking against Covid-19, or promulgating political lies, O’Neil allows room for shame while also urging readers always to “punch up” at the social and economic machine and its masters rather than down at the vulnerable.
A thoughtful blend of social and biological science, history, economics, and sometimes contrarian politics.Pub Date: March 22, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-984825-45-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 10, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
A clearly delineated guide to finally eradicate poverty in America.
A thoughtful program for eradicating poverty from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Evicted.
“America’s poverty is not for lack of resources,” writes Desmond. “We lack something else.” That something else is compassion, in part, but it’s also the lack of a social system that insists that everyone pull their weight—and that includes the corporations and wealthy individuals who, the IRS estimates, get away without paying upward of $1 trillion per year. Desmond, who grew up in modest circumstances and suffered poverty in young adulthood, points to the deleterious effects of being poor—among countless others, the precarity of health care and housing (with no meaningful controls on rent), lack of transportation, the constant threat of losing one’s job due to illness, and the need to care for dependent children. It does not help, Desmond adds, that so few working people are represented by unions or that Black Americans, even those who have followed the “three rules” (graduate from high school, get a full-time job, wait until marriage to have children), are far likelier to be poor than their White compatriots. Furthermore, so many full-time jobs are being recast as contracted, fire-at-will gigs, “not a break from the norm as much as an extension of it, a continuation of corporations finding new ways to limit their obligations to workers.” By Desmond’s reckoning, besides amending these conditions, it would not take a miracle to eliminate poverty: about $177 billion, which would help end hunger and homelessness and “make immense headway in driving down the many agonizing correlates of poverty, like violence, sickness, and despair.” These are matters requiring systemic reform, which will in turn require Americans to elect officials who will enact that reform. And all of us, the author urges, must become “poverty abolitionists…refusing to live as unwitting enemies of the poor.” Fortune 500 CEOs won’t like Desmond’s message for rewriting the social contract—which is precisely the point.
A clearly delineated guide to finally eradicate poverty in America.Pub Date: March 21, 2023
ISBN: 9780593239919
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.
A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.
“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
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