Thoughtful discourse on the workings of praise and blame that will be particularly helpful to readers sensitive to scrutiny.
Examination of how our inherent need for appreciation and acceptance can be sabotaged by incrimination and criticism.
Personally and professionally fascinated by relational judgments for over three decades, British psychologist Apter (Difficult Mothers: Understanding and Overcoming Their Power, 2012, etc.) explores the nature of praise and blame and how our predisposition to be judgmental of ourselves and others stems from the evolution of the human brain and the progression of interactive social discourse. The author writes that our sensitivities to praise and blame begin as infants able to “mindsight” and detect purpose and feelings in facial signals. She analyzes the importance of praise in reinforcing confidence in early child development and how it can aid in building brain circuits via the natural highs induced by oxytocin and endorphins. Apter dutifully acknowledges that teenagers can be the toughest to praise, as motivations and perceived patronization come into play, and she provides evidence with her observational research case findings. Conversely, the side effects of blame are painful and emotionally and physically burdensome for individuals of any age as well as for family members. The simple pursuit of praise and the careful avoidance of blame can be emblematic of larger social issues, Apter notes, especially in the context of social media engagement and the competitiveness between siblings or co-workers. In more thoroughly described studies, the author discusses the dynamics of friendships differentiated by gender, or how rejection, a lack of positive reinforcement, and mismanaged blame can foster infidelity in romantic couples. “The demand to be the best ushers in a cascade of anxieties,” she writes, offering an interesting assessment of the various judgment systems active in many contemporary families. In noting that “we live, day by day, in the constant company of our judgments,” Apter counsels that mindfulness and inward reflection can lessen the encumbrances of judgment.
Thoughtful discourse on the workings of praise and blame that will be particularly helpful to readers sensitive to scrutiny.Pub Date: Jan. 9, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-393-24785-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Oct. 29, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2017
Though cheerleading occasionally grates, Plouffe offers good fodder for readers willing to put in the effort and follow his...
Barack Obama’s former campaign manager and senior adviser weighs in on what it will take to defeat Donald Trump and repair some of the damage caused by the previous election’s “historically disturbing and perhaps democracy-destroying outcome.”
Plouffe (The Audacity To Win: The Inside Story and Lessons of Barack Obama's Historic Victory, 2009) managed Obama’s successful campaigns in 2008 and 2012. His unsurprising goal in 2020 is to take down Trump, and he provides a detailed guide for every American to become involved beyond just voting. Where the author is not offering specific suggestions for individual involvement, he engages in optimistic encouragement to put readers in the mindset to entertain his suggestions. Plouffe wisely realizes that many potential readers feel beaten down by the relentlessness of Trump’s improper behavior and misguided policies, so there is plenty of motivational exhortation that highly motivated readers might find unnecessary. When he turns to voting statistics, he’s on solid ground. Plouffe expresses certainty that Trump will face opposition from at least 65 million voters in the 2020 election. One of the author’s goals is to increase that number to somewhere between 70 and 75 million, which would be enough to win not only the popular votes for the Democratic Party nominee, but also the Electoral College by a comfortable margin. Some of that increased number can be achieved by increasing the percentage of citizens who vote, with additional gains from voters who vote for the Democratic nominee rather than symbolically supporting a third-party candidate. Plouffe also feels optimistic about persuading Obama supporters who—perhaps surprisingly—voted for Trump in 2016. As for individual involvement prior to November, the author favors direct action. Door-to-door canvassing is his favorite method, but he offers alternatives for those who cannot or will not take their opinions to the streets, including campaigning via social media. And while the author would love to change the Electoral College, he wisely tells readers they must live with it again this time around.
Though cheerleading occasionally grates, Plouffe offers good fodder for readers willing to put in the effort and follow his advice.Pub Date: March 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-7949-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
One may quibble with the title: this is a study of Islamic Orientalism solely, of Western representations of the Near East, with little or no direct reference to Persia, India, China, Japan.
Professor Said (Comparative Literature, Columbia) explains the limited focus as both methodological (coherence over exhaustiveness) and personal: he is an Arab Palestinian. But among Eastern civilizations, as he recognizes, Islam is a special case, particularly in relation to Christian Europe: a "fraudulent," competing religion (doggedly miscalled Mohammedanism), a longstanding military threat, and all the more, therefore, as affront. Singularity, however, is no handicap to what is essentially a case study of Western ethno-centrism and its consequences, while the very persistence of the generalizing and dehumanizing attitudes that Said condemns, unparalleled in regard to either Africa or the Far East, argues the urgency of the enterprise. Drawing, most prominently, upon Foucault's history of pernicious ideas, Said traces the development of Orientalism from Silvestre de Sacy's fragmentation of Oriental culture into "a canon of textual objects" and Ernest Renan's incorporation of the fragments into the new comparative philology: "the Orient's contemporary relevance [was] to be simply as material for European investigation." Ascribed traits—passivity, eroticism, etc.—became fixed; travelers, ostensibly sympathetic, added exotic tales; and the presumed inferiority of Islam served as the pretext for its political domination, its supposed backwardness the excuse for economic intervention (with even Karl Marx writing of England's "regenerating" mission in India). Not until after World War II does Islam enter the American consciousness, and then—with Arab specialists in attendance—as "the disrupter of Israel's and the West's existence." Said's recent citations are devastating, and add force to his final challenge: how to avoid all categorization of one people by another?
The book is redundant and not always reasonable, but bound to cut a wide swath and leave its mark.
Pub Date: Nov. 30, 1978
ISBN: 039474067X
Page Count: 417
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: May 22, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1978
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