“Our view is…a deeply cynical one,” write the authors, and is “unlikely to change anything about how people argue publicly...
An examination of how selfishness and self-deception characterize political thinking.
Psychologists Weeden and Kurzban (Why Everyone (Else) is a Hypocrite: Evolution and the Modular Mind, 2011) argue that one’s opinions on social and political issues, liberal or conservative, are shaped by self-interest. No matter the issue, they write, “policies people fight over have real-life consequences that help some people and harm others. In our view, all sides typically seek to advance their interests and are hypocritical in the way they present their views.” In support of their argument, they use data from the U.S. General Social Survey, which asks for responses on issues such as same-sex marriage, abortion, immigration reform, government-provided health insurance, legalization of marijuana, gun control and income equality. About a third of the book consists of appendices summarizing the results of the surveys, with respondents distinguished by race, income, religion, ethnicity, level of education and intellectual ability. All individuals, the authors assert, behave like politicians or CEOs, hiding their real motives behind “socially attractive veneers. The Public Relations Departments of people’s minds craft stories about the benevolent wisdom of their own views and the malevolent idiocy of their opponents’ views.” Admitting the limits of their analysis, the authors cannot explain why some people show concern over environmental issues, defense spending or physician-assisted suicide. What, they wonder, are the “real-life interests” that motivate them? “[W]hile we understand why news stories involving floods and storms, environmental catastrophes, or terrorist bombings are particularly attention grabbing for human minds…we don’t see how this leads to widespread, passionate conflict within society.” Self-interest, in the authors’ view, is myopically focused on immediate needs.
“Our view is…a deeply cynical one,” write the authors, and is “unlikely to change anything about how people argue publicly about their preferred policies.” However, this disturbing book may provoke debate, dismay and considerable anger.Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2014
ISBN: 978-0691161112
Page Count: 376
Publisher: Princeton Univ.
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2014
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
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
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