An entertaining book of popular psychology.
Time editor at large Kluger (The Sibling Effect: What the Bonds Among Brothers and Sisters Reveal About Us, 2011, etc.) reveals recent scientific findings and age-old chestnuts about every possible breed of narcissist.
As the author notes at the beginning of this survey, the behavior was already prevalent long before Narcissus looked into the pond. The narrative is a mix of clinical observations and everyday anecdotes that will be familiar to most readers. Narcissists are everywhere, he writes, from Donald Trump to the date who keeps looking over your shoulder. They exhibit excessive self-admiration and egotism, as well as a medieval sense of noble entitlement. Kluger suggests that by the age of 8, we begin to discern these traits, avoiding them in ourselves and cringing when we see them in others. Although studies have shown that only 1 percent of the general population suffers clinical narcissistic personality disorder, that “is not a stand-alone condition. It’s part of the suite of ten personality disorders, which also include paranoid, borderline, histrionic, antisocial, dependent, avoidant, rigid, schizoid, and schizotypal personalities.” Many of these smug, empathy-challenged individuals suffer from a significant lack of self-esteem, and they are often the recipients of too much praise and too little love, so validated in everything they do that they are shocked when the praise doesn’t keep rolling in like waves. Kluger also examines the role of heredity, and he covers a wide swath of psychological terrain, throwing us food for thought like Lyndon Johnson’s exhibitionism; the grievance and grandiosity of Columbine murderers Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris; and the prevalence of narcissism within organized sports, which “ably captures the deep feelings, kabuki rituals and utter pointlessness of tribal competition.” The author is nothing if not balanced as he introduces competing theories and allows them full opportunity to speak.
An entertaining book of popular psychology.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-59448-636-4
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: July 29, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2014
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
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BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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