A well-researched, thought-provoking reconsideration of society’s sacred cows.
A researcher explores the power of ideas in this debut nonfiction book.
“Ideas,” writes Murphy, “cut the fabric of our being and determine who we are.” With a focus on the ideas that shape our actions, beliefs, and notions of family, the author contends that the question of “Whose Ideas Am I?” is far more important than the more ubiquitous rumination, “Who Am I?” Per the author, some of modern society’s primary assumptions—such as the idea that wearing a collared shirt with a knotted tie somehow transforms a middle-aged man into a professional—would be mocked by societies with other ideas of success. While pointing out some of the absurdities baked into daily life, Murphy is particularly effective at highlighting our propensity to accept bad ideas. From Aztec heart sacrifices and European religious wars to the rampant consumerism that drives today’s society, it’s clear to the author that “practical realities created by our imagination are not always wonderful.” (Murphy writes that consumerism is an “antisocial ideology” undergirded by the flawed assumptions that “new is always better than old” and “want supersedes need.”) While the author, the founder and lead researcher at the think tank Prepolitica, has long focused on the ways in which political ideologies hamper data-driven policy, this book is interdisciplinary in its approach. The cogent narrative, backed by 350 scholarly endnotes, draws on 21st-century neuroscience and evolutionary biology and incorporates lessons from sociology, history, and anthropology. Geared toward practical solutions—a central argument of the book is that “abstracted life is miserable, lonely, and stressful”—the work concludes with a list of pragmatic ways to help readers better examine and potentially move beyond counterproductive ideas. At just under 165 total pages and full of drawings, diagrams, photographs, and other visual aids, this is an accessible book that strikes a fine balance between academic research and engaging prose. Readers driven by political, religious, or other ideologies will be challenged—the book is a good reminder to question the conventions that shape our lives.
A well-researched, thought-provoking reconsideration of society’s sacred cows.Pub Date: May 1, 2024
ISBN: 9781068611001
Page Count: 306
Publisher: Arc_titru
Review Posted Online: May 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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