Sunday Book Review #77 – Brandwashed by Martin Lindstrom

Brandwashed is acknowledged by its author Martin Lindstrom as a follow-up to Vance Packard’s 1957 classic, The Hidden Persuaders, which was “a book that pulled back the curtain on all the psychological tricks and tactics companies and their marketers and advertisers were using to manipulate people’s minds and persuade them to buy.  It was shocking.  It was groundbreaking.  It was controversial.  And it’s nothing compared to what’s going on in the marketing and advertising world today.  Nearly six decades later, businesses, marketers, advertisers, and retailers have gotten far craftier, savvier, and more sinister.”

Unfortunately, Brandwashed does not deliver on its promise.  Perhaps consumers like me have become jaded to marketing techniques, but I read nothing in the book that was shocking or controversial.  I wasn’t shocked to learn that marketers try to encourage purchasing by use of:

• Fear (exaggerating dangers of SIDS, germs, disease, etc.)
• Sex (buy the product and be sexually successful)
• Peer pressure (herd instinct)
• Nostalgia (buy the product and return to a happier, simpler time)
• Celebrity (buy the product and be like the celebrity)
• Snake oil (vaguely promise that non-FDA products will work miracles on you)

The only important post-Packard information consisted of a lengthy concluding chapter that detailed the extensive data-mining that is taking place.  Much of this data is mined from digital coupons, Facebook and Twitter, credit-card purchases, and loyalty-card memberships.   

Perhaps it would have been useful for the author Lindstrom to explain how data-mining or any other of these marketing techniques are a bad thing.        

 

 

 

 

Sunday Book Review #76 – Better Than Normal by Dr. Dale Archer

Psychiatrist Dr. Dale Archer is on a mission to convince Americans that there is nothing wrong with having personality traits that, in their severe form, might be diagnosed as a mental disorder requiring treatment.  In fact, these traits might serve you well in living a fulfilling life.  That explains why Archer’s book, Better Than Normal, is subtitled, “How What Makes You Different Can Make You Exceptional.”   

Better Than Normal is essentially a very simple book.  In each of eight chapters, Archer takes a famous mental disorder and describes how individuals with personality traits commonly associated with the disorder, but without a full-blown affliction, can actually use those traits to achieve and accomplish.

For example, the first mental disorder described is Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity.  The so-called ascendant strengths associated with this disorder are energy, playfulness, adventurous, need for high levels of stimulation, and divergent thinking.

In addition to listing ascendant strengths, most chapters also discuss (a) careers that would benefit from those strengths, (b) the effect of those traits on a personal life, and (c) the evolutionary imperative (Garner’s best guess as to why the oft-genetic disorders were not weeded out by evolution).    

In addition to ADHD, the other seven mental disorders discussed are OCD (obsessive/compulsive), social anxiety disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, histrionic, narcissistic, bipolar, and schizophrenia. 

I think Dr. Archer is on a noble mission.  Strong personality traits should not be routinely muzzled as long as those traits do not trample on the rights of others.  Instead, these traits should be encouraged to flourish in beneficial ways. 

There’s an old saying about being comfortable in your own skin, and I think Dr. Archer is working in that direction.      

 

Sunday Book Review #75 – Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man by Steve Harvey

Steve Harvey, the author of Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man, is a stand-up comic who has a radio talk show in which he advises women on how to handle men.  His book was published in 2009, and a few weeks ago a movie based on the book and titled Think Like a Man was released. 

The book, which is subtitled, “What Men Really Think About Love, Relationships, Intimacy, and Commitment,” is a distillation of Harvey’s insights, but its principal focus is on helping God-fearing women to get the right God-fearing man to marry them.  If you aren’t God-fearing or focused on getting married, then the book wasn’t meant for you.

Ironically, in the book Harvey continually describes a man’s behavior as “in our DNA,” yet he has generated some controversy on various talk shows by claiming that atheists are idiots with no moral barometer – “You can’t just tell me it spun out of a gastrous [sic] ball and then all of a sudden we were evolved from monkeys. Why we still got monkeys?”   

Harvey is not the kind of guy who slows down enough to think about where the DNA comes from.  All he knows is that it explains just about everything about a man, starting with his three primal needs:

• “Men are driven by who they are (his title), what they do (how he gets that title), and how much they make (the reward he gets for that effort).  These three things make up the basic DNA of manhood – the three accomplishments every man must achieve before he feels like he’s truly fulfilled his destiny as a man.  And until he’s achieved his goal in those three areas, the man you’re dating, committed to, or married to will be too busy to focus on you.”

The preceding passage rings true with me.  I remember being so insecure about these things, especially in high school and college, that I had no ability to care about anyone else.  I imagine this insecurity afflicts all young men to varying degrees, but some, like my oldest son Bobby, who started dating his wife early in high school, seem to get comfortable in their own skin much quicker than the rest of us.

Harvey’s next insight is to warn women that men don’t display their love as expressively as women do, so expressiveness shouldn’t be expected.  Most men display their love in three ways:

1. Profess.  He proudly lets everyone know that this woman in mine – my wife, my woman, my lady, my girl.  Never my friend.
2. Provide.  He takes care of her financial needs.  No going dutch.
3. Protect.  He takes care of her, not just physically, but also mentally and spiritually.

In return, a man needs support, loyalty, and the cookie (sex).

Sex is really the crux of this entire book.  According to Harvey, men have to have it (it’s in their DNA), and women need to use it to get men to behave appropriately.  As with his statement about a man’s insecurity, I think this statement also rings true.  I remember noticing in my younger years how some guys would act badly in a variety of ways, and then have girls reward that behavior.  To my thinking, the girls were almost more responsible for the bad acts than were the guys because, as Harvey points out, guys will do whatever gets a favorable response from the girls.  It’s axiomatic that if you want more of something, reward it; if you want less of something; punish it.

Harvey suggests that the best time for a woman to establish her expectations with a man is right from the git-go, and that has been my experience, too.  I recall having my best secretarial experience back in Minot, ND when I sat down with a new secretary on her first day and had a thorough conversation with her on what she could expect from me and what I expected from her.  That made it less likely that a person would fail to meet expectations, and when they did, it was easier to broach the subject.  In other situations, where expectations haven’t been clearly set, it is more awkward to broach and discuss issues.

Because men are invariably after sex (the cookie) and because women invariably are after marriage (at least those for whom this book is written), Harvey advises holding out on the cookie for at least 90 days, by which time the man will have revealed himself and his intentions.  One of the ways to elicit this information is by asking the following five questions early in the relationship:

1. What are your short-term goals (three to five years)?
2. What are your long-term goals (ten years)?
3. What are your views on relationships (parents, kids, God)?
4. What do you think about me (and on what are those thoughts based)?
5. What do you feel about me (can’t stop thinking about you)?

Harvey concludes by taking a shot at strong, independent women.  According to him, they are destined to be lonely unless they figure out a way for their man to feel like he is protecting and providing for them.  After all, it’s in the man’s DNA.

Sunday Book Review #73 – The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt

The inside jacket to The Righteous Mind provided me with as much motivation to read the book as any other jacket I have read:

“Why can’t our political leaders work together as threats loom and problems mount?  Why do people so readily assume the worst about the motives of their fellow citizens?  In The Righteous Mind, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt explores the origins of our divisions and points the way forward to mutual understanding.”

As a political moderate, I can’t imagine a more beneficial objective.  Unfortunately, Haidt is able to deliver only with respect to the origins of our divisions, but not as applied to getting past these divisions.

Haidt begins with the thesis that, with the human brain, intuition comes first, strategic reasoning second.  This thesis is very similar to one that described by Daniel Kahneman in Thinking Fast and Slow (Book Review #67).  A major difference, however, is that Kahneman believes that humans can train their strategic reasoning (so-called System 2) to override their intuition (so-called System 1).  By contrast, Haidt believes that intuition dominates the human brain and that strategic reasoning was developed only to serve the intuition.  To reflect the significant difference in influence between intuition and strategic reasoning, Haidt describes intuition as the elephant and strategic reasoning as merely the rider.  The rider serves the elephant by performing the following functions:

1. It can see further into the future; 
2. It can learn new skills and master new technologies; and
3. Most importantly, it acts as a spokesperson for the elephant by rationalizing for public consumption what the elephant decides to do.  This role is equivalent to being a lawyer or a PR flack.

Haidt’s second thesis is that, although most people think there are essentially only two moral foundations – care/harm and fairness/cheating – there actually are six:

1. Care/harm
2. Fairness/cheating
3. Liberty/oppression
4. Loyalty/betrayal
5. Authority/subversion
6. Sanctity/degradation

Haidt suggests that the source of the Democratic Party’s electoral failures for the past 30 years is that it has appealed only the first two moral foundations while the Republican Party has been very good at appealing to all six of these moral foundations.

Haidt’s third and final thesis is that individuals are not purely selfish, but rather they follow their club/clique thinking.  He calls this “Morality Binds and Blinds” because it not only creates cohesiveness, but also causes an unthinking rejection of all contrary positions.  Religion and politics are quintessential in their ability to bring together a large number of individuals for a common cause while at the same time magnifying any differences with individuals outside the group – “us vs. them” thinking.

Based on his three theses, Haidt defines moral systems as “interlocking sets of values, virtues, norms, practices, identities, institutions, technologies, and evolved psychological mechanisms that work together to suppress or regulate self-interest and make co-operative societies possible.”  And with respect to “pointing the way forward to mutual understanding,” as the book jacket suggested, Haidt concludes with the following:

           This book explained why people are divided by politics and religion.  The answer is not, as Manichaeans would have it, because some people are good and others are evil.  Instead, the explanation is that our minds were designed for groupish righteousness.  We are deeply intuitive creatures whose gut feelings drive our strategic reasoning.  This makes it difficult – but not impossible – to connect with those who live in other matrices, which are often built on different configurations of the available moral foundations. 

          So the next time you find yourself seated beside someone from another matrix, give it a try.  Don’t just jump right in.  Don’t bring up morality until you’ve found a few points of commonality or in some other way established a bit of trust.  And when you bring up issues of morality, try to start with some praise, or with a sincere expression of interest.

            We’re all stuck her for a while, so let’s try to work it out.

(The last sentence was a quote from Rodney King that the author has referred to earlier in the book.)

The book makes a few references to YourMorals.org.  I went to the site and found that it offers a plethora of morality quizzes.  I’ve taken one, with many to follow.

Sunday Book Review #72 – See Me Naked by Amy Frykholm

See Me Naked should not be confused with the more popular Does This Mean You Will See Me Naked: Field Notes from a Funeral Director.  See Me Naked is subtitled Stories of Sexual Exile in American Christianity, and it concerns the difficulty that many Christians have in reconciling their spirituality and their sexuality:

• [W]e can look at this dilemma culturally and recognize that we come by it naturally.  In a body-obsessed yet body-hating culture, where sex is for sale 24 hours a day, perhaps it is a relief to check our bodies at the door when we go to church.  American Christianity has taught that the only viable relationship between body and spirit is a proper following of the rules.  “God’s plan” for human sexuality is a familiar theme in churches, and while this “plan” may or may not live up to our experiences, we judge ourselves by it.  American Christianity promises a life lived happily ever after to anyone who waits for sex until marriage, marries a religious person, and raises children in the church.  The fact that this scenario describes fewer and fewer of us with each passing day is of little account.  The problem, however, is that “the rules” as they are taught us and presented as an alternative to an out-of-control culture of sexual obsession actually serves to make matters worse.  They underscore a fundamental divide between the body and the spirit, and they deprive us of one of the key insights of Christianity: that the body, with all its struggles, pains, and difficulties, can lead us into a more full relationship with God.  And not only when we follow the rules and do everything right – even when life is complicated, beautiful, and strange, as life nearly always is.

Frykholm begins See Me Naked by telling the story of the 2006 sex-related downfall of mega-church pastor Ted Haggard of the New Life Church in Colorado Springs.  Haggard was a spiritual counselor to Bush-43 and Frykholm describes Haggard’s New Life Church as “a microcosm of American religion with its strange blend of marketing, charismatic personalities, ‘Bible-based’ teaching, and latte bars….  Both before and after Haggard’s demise, I’d sensed an erotic energy that intrigued me.  Certainly it wasn’t overt, and I am expecting readers may laugh at me when I mention it.  But my sense is, on the level of instinct, that people are drawn to New Life Church in part because of a potent sexual energy.  They project their desires onto the shaggy-haired men with guitars on stage.  They feel caught up in the enlivening energy of being something larger than themselves – something more spectacular and more beautiful than themselves. When Gayle and Ted occupied their places front and center, members of the congregation projected their own fantasies and hopes about heterosexual marriage onto the handsome couple and idolized their intimacy.”

In a documentary titled Friends of God, Haggard is quoted telling a journalist, “You know, all the studies say that evangelicals have better sex than anyone else.”  To support his thesis, Haggard questioned two young men from the church – “How often do you have sex with your wives?”  One responded with, “Every day.  Sometimes twice a day.”  “And out of a hundred times that you have sex with your wife, how often does she climax?”  Every one, they responded.  Rather the being assured by this exchange, Frykholm is troubled – “Christianity does very little, if anything, to protect us against abuse, manipulation, objectification, and betrayal.”   

See Me Naked comprises three parts – Wilderness, Incarnation, and Resurrection – and each part contains three lengthy stories of individuals attempting to bring together their spirituality and their sexuality.  Frykholm focuses on Protestant Christians “because the problem I am trying to diagnose has significant Protestant roots.  While Catholic stories might have similarities with those told here, they will also have differences, and those differences should not be papered over.”     

The Wilderness section is named after the biblical “wilderness,” which is generally a place of threat, chaos and alienation; a place or state of withdrawal from the world to face the reality of God, oneself and one’s neighbor, and to overcome the power of evil.  “While it is confusing, disorienting, and frightening, it is also a place where God can be met.”  The three subjects of this section find themselves in a wilderness and have varying levels of success in dealing with it.  “Sarah, Mark, and Megan, as well as many others of us, have spent significant time in what I’ve called the wilderness, where religious faith and sexuality do not find an easy relationship, where confusion and uncertainty mar the landscape and the way forward is not clear.  But in a way that should not surprise us – wilderness is also a place where God meets us and whispers new possibilities and coaxes us into a bigger world, full of more grace than our worlds held before.” 

The Incarnation section discusses the role of incarnation – i.e., a deity becoming human – in reconciling spirituality and sex.  In the author’s view, the three subjects in this section “took steps toward a deeper understanding of their incarnation and so moved toward a fully embodied faith.”

The Resurrection section focuses on the ability of someone who, in spite of pain and suffering, allows themselves to be vulnerable again.

In the end, Frykholm provides her readers with an alternative sexual ethic.  She suggests that individuals move their focus away from rules and judgments about whether a particular action is right or wrong.  Instead she suggests discernment – i.e., thinking about things and understanding “what behavior is truly damaging to ourselves and to others….  We can also discern when sexuality that might ‘break the rules’ is a source of joy and hope.  Because nonjudgment means that we no longer look to an external list of rules to tell us what is right and wrong, it also means that we have to hone our powers of discernment.  This principle is threatening to those terrified of the very freedom to which our religious freedom calls us, but it is essential if we are to find an alternative to our current state of alienation between body and spirit.”

Well said, Amy Frykholm, but with me, you have been preaching to the choir. 

p.s., Amy notes in her conclusion that her dislike of photographs of herself was a form of youthful self-consciousness, akin to narcissism.  Interesting thought.

Sunday Book Review #71 – Back to Work, by Bill Clinton

Back to Work is a surprisingly lame book, given Bill Clinton’s reputation as a brilliant politician and a public-policy wonk.  It contains nothing that you won’t hear during a week or two on the mostly superficial TV & radio talk shows.

Not surprisingly, the liberal NY Times was impressed with the book.  In fact, it noted in a review that the slender book (192 pages) was actually three books in one:

1. A series of shrewd talking points for the Democrats to use in the 2012 election;
2. A self-serving reminder of how great times were under the Clinton administration; and
3. A practical set of proposals to get the American economy moving again.

The Times summed up the book as follows:

• At a time when anti-government ranting dominates the Republican debates and the Democrats often seem on the defensive, Mr. Clinton serves up a succinct common-sense argument for why America needs a strong national government, why both spending cuts and increased tax revenues are necessary for addressing the debt problem (which is going to get worse given the demographics of an aging baby-boomer population and the high costs of interest payments), and why that debt problem “can’t be solved unless the economy starts growing again.

I recently noted to a fellow conservative that the Republican Party seems to have created a straw-man argument that the Democrats want to balance the budget on the backs of the rich, even though everyone knows (including the Democrats) that you could have a 100% tax on rich people’s income and still not balance the budget.  

But Bill Clinton and his book have more than a passing acquaintance with straw-man arguments.  In the book, he asserts, “The Republicans seemed to be saying that the financial crash and the recession that followed … were caused by too much government taxing, spending, and regulation.”  I don’t know of a single Republican who has made that argument, and I’d love to challenge Clinton to name one.  After setting up his straw-man argument, Clinton deftly explains that “the meltdown happened because banks were overleveraged, with too many risky investments, especially in subprime mortgages and the securities and derivatives that were spun out of them, and too little cash to cover the risks.”  Bill, tell us something we don’t already know. 

Another straw-man argument – Clinton claims that conservatives want to balance the budget by reducing foreign aid, even though everyone (including Republicans) knows that foreign aid consumes a very small percentage of the federal budget (about 1%). 

Although the book contains no great insights, it does contain two interesting statements:

1. “For reasons that are unclear, the President and the Democratic Congress did not raise the debt ceiling after the election, in November or December of 2010, when they still had a majority.”  You’d think that Clinton could obtain clarify this matter, if he were really interested.
2. “From 1981 to 2009, the greatest accomplishment of the anti-government Republicans was not to reduce the size of the federal government but to stop paying for it.”  There is more than a little truth to this sarcastic talking point.

He also makes a statement that doesn’t seem credible:

• “After World War II until 1980, the bottom 90% of Americans consistently earned about 65% of the national income, and the top ten percent earned about 35%, of which 10% went to the top 1%.”  It’s hard to imagine the top 10% making only 3.5 times what bottom 90% make.

As the Times noted, Clinton has no modesty or humility about the good economic numbers during his presidency.  You can tell that he is just busting at the seams with pride. 

The real essence of Back to Work is that Clinton believes the anti-government forces in America have been winning the battle for 30 years and that they need to be defeated because government is needed for the following:

1. National security;
2. Safety net, including social security;
3. Promote equal access to opportunity;
4. Economic development;
5. Oversight of financial markets;
6. Protect public interests in the economy (clean air, clean water, safe food, safe transportation, safe workplace, civil rights);

Again, Clinton’s argument is a straw man.  There is actually very little debate over what government functions should be, but rather over how intrusive the government should be with those functions and over which level of government should before the function.  ObamaCare is a classic example on both fronts.

Clinton finishes the book by providing a long list (46) of programs that will get America working again.  Leading the list are ending the ongoing mortgage mess and getting corporations to start investing their dormant cash.  The objectives are obvious, but how to get there is not so obvious.    

If you aren’t interested in learning the Democratic talking points for 2012 or hearing a reminder of good the Clinton-administration economic numbers were, I suggest passing on this book.

 

 

 

Sunday Book Review #70 – In the Meantime by Iyanla Vanzant

A few weeks ago, a cycling friend and I were talking about personal-relationship problems.  She had recently broken up with a guy she was planning to marry and was attempting to move on.  In jest, she told me that to get over someone you needed to get under someone else.  Although this was not her first major breakup, she was still struggling with it.  Losing a relationship that you are invested in is never easy.  To make sense of it all, she was doing what many of us do – we get drunk.  No, just kidding.  Actually she was trying to read her way out of it.  The book that she was reading was a 1998 book by Iyanla Vanzant titled In the Meantime. 

Although I had never heard of the book or author, the internet revealed that Vanzant was an inspirational speaker, had sold over 8-million books, and was a frequent guest on Oprah Winfrey.  (Of course, I have only seen a few Oprah shows, so that probably explains why I hadn’t heard of Vanzant.)  This weekend, in the course of corresponding with a new, literate eHarmony friend, I mentioned the book and Vanzant, and my new friend suggested that Vanzant trafficked in “pop psychology” that was often incorrect.

Despite my friend’s characterization of Vanzant, or perhaps consistent with it, I found that In the Meantime contain numerous useful insights.  Her essential point is that an individual is responsible for her own happiness and it is counter-productive to expend any energy blaming others for your unhappy fate in life.  The author’s secondary point ws that you can’t love and be loved by others until you learn to love yourself.

In the Meantime is structured like a house.  It begins in the basement, where Vanzant explains why it is essential for an individual to understand all of the baggage created by a lifetime of living.  On the first floor, Vanzant describes how an individual learns self-love.  One of the phrases used is Obama-esque – “You are the one you are looking for.”  On the second floor, Vanzant discusses the most important relationship a person will ever have – the relationship you have with yourself.  Vanzant describes the third floor as the place where you still “have the natural, normal, emotional responses to life and its nerve-wracking situations,” but “you will quickly recover from an emotional upheaval because you will apply love to situation.”  I don’t know if my cycling friend was living on the third floor, but it sounded like she was.  Paradoxically, Vanzant attempts to leave us in the attic.  That is a place where an individual has developed a child-like consciousness – totally accepting of self and others.

As I drafted this review, I was struck by how accurate my eHarmony friend’s characterization of Vanzant was.  This book is pop psychology.  The term is given two definitions by Wikipedia:

1. The term popular psychology (frequently called pop psychology or pop psych) refers to concepts and theories about human mental life and behavior that are purportedly based on psychology and that attain popularity among the general population. The concept is closely related to the human potential movement of the 1950s and ’60s.  The term “pop psychologist” can be used to describe authors, consultants, lecturers and entertainers who are widely perceived as being psychologists, not because of their academic credentials, but because they have projected that image or have been perceived in that way in response to their work.  The term popular psychology can also be used when referring to the popular psychology industry, a sprawling network of everyday sources of information about human behavior.
2. The term is often used in a dismissive fashion to describe psychological concepts that appear oversimplified, out of date, unproven, misunderstood or misinterpreted; however, the term may also be used to describe professionally produced psychological knowledge, regarded by most experts as valid and effective, that is intended for use by the general public

 Although my eHarmony friend was probably describing Vanzant according to the dismissive definition, I don’t think that description is accurate for the contents of In the Meantime.  I believe this book fits the more favorable definition in the sense that it provides practical, useful guidance to the public without asserting any reliance on scientific, psychological principles.

Sunday Book Review #69 – Hard Sell by Jamie Reidy

Last week, I watched an entertaining movie called Love and Other Drugs.  The movie, which I gave three stars out of four, was based on a book called Hard Sell.  Although the book is interesting, its dramatization bear almost no similarity to the book.  The movie gives the Viagra salesman much more personality than the guy in the book, and the real key to the movie – the girlfriend with Parkinson’s disease – was not in the book at all. 

In my blog, I described Love and Other Drugs as a movie that started unsuccessfully as a romantic comedy and then successfully transitioned into a romantic drama.  The book Hard Sell is neither a comedy nor a drama.  Rather, it is a rather prosaic account of life as a pharmaceutical salesman.  It describes the lifestyle of the reps and their interactions with doctors, nurses, and receptionists.  It also tells how pharmaceutical companies work through their reps to increase profits by creating demand for their drugs. 

Hard Sell is a modestly informative book, but don’t expect to learn anything profound.

Sunday Book Review #68 – Grant’s Final Victory

The first book in my to-do queue list this week was On What Matters, a book with in-depth discussions of various philosophical issues.  The book’s table of contents was irresistible – rationality, morality, values, universal laws, etc.  A few hours into the book, however, I realized that it contained much more depth than I was able to handle, and I pushed it aside.  Part of the ease in doing this probably had to do with the next book in queue – Grant’s Final Victory by Charles Bracelen Flood.  After recently reading and greatly enjoying Bill O’Reilly’s book on Lincoln and Glenn Beck’s book on Washington, the Grant book promised to be a lot lighter than a dense 500-page book on philosophy.

Grant’s Final Victory was incredibly light.  Although I don’t know enough about Grant to challenge the author’s credibility, I am highly skeptical that Grant walked on water like this book suggests he did.  The book focuses on the last year of Grant’s life, when he was afflicted with tongue and throat cancer shortly after his betrayal by two financial criminals had left him penniless.  That story arch reminds me of Texas governor John Connally. 

Like Connally, Grant faced his financial and health crisis with courage and dignity.  During his last year, while under great pain, Grant wrote his Memoirs, which provided for his family’s financial salvation and is sometimes recognized as one of the best American memoirs every written.  As Grant himself sardonically noted shortly before he died, his writing skills had greatly exceeded expectations, just as his soldiering and political skills had done.      

But the book does not focus exclusively on the final year of Grant’s life.  Instead it often refers back to earlier times in Grant’s life.  And although it does not completely over-look Grant’s failures, such as his early military-career setbacks or his dismal business career just prior to the Civil War, these items are given only a few sentences.  Even the financial incident that left him penniless after the presidency is depicted as Grant having reasonable faith in two close associates who betrayed him.  By contrast, most facts in the book suggest that Grant was nearly a saint with respect to his character. 

Grant’s Final Victory was an enjoyable read, but I suspect the author did as much spinning as Beck and O’Reilly do.

 

 

 

Sunday Book Review #67 – Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

Over a year ago, I blogged about intuition by comparing the viewpoints of two of my favorite authors – Ayn Rand of Atlas Shrugged fame and Malcolm Gladwell of Outliers fame.  Rand was not a fan of intuition and famously said:

• “As a human being, you have no choice about the fact that you need a philosophy.  Your only choice is whether you define your philosophy by a conscious, rational, disciplined process of thought and scrupulously logical deliberation – or let your subconscious accumulate a junk heap of unwarranted conclusions, false generalizations, undefined contradictions, undigested slogans, unidentified wishes, doubts and fears, thrown together by chance, but integrated by your subconscious into a kind of mongrel philosophy and fused into a single solid weight: self doubt, like a ball and chain in the place where your mind’s wings should have grown.”

By contrast, Gladwell in his book Blink described intuition as mental processes that work rapidly and automatically from relatively little information – something he called thin-slicing.  He believed that many spontaneous decisions were as good as—or even better than—carefully planned and considered ones.  Gladwell believed experts were especially able to thin-slice, but this ability could be corrupted by their likes and dislikes, prejudices, and stereotypes (even unconscious ones).  Experts could also be overloaded by too much information (e.g., analysis paralysis).

Thinking Fast and Slow takes essentially the same position as Gladwell’s book Blink, but it is much more in-depth and comprehensive.  Gladwell is relatively a subject-matter dilettante compared to Kahneman, who has won a Nobel Prize in Economics and has been studying this subject (decision-making) his entire life. 

Kahneman does an especially good job in describing how fast and efficient intuition is, which he calls it System 1.  But he also vividly describes the slower, lazy System 2, which monitors the functioning of System 1 and overrules it where necessary.  This overruling of System 1 by System 2 is necessary because, although System 1 is generally accurate, it makes lots of fundamental mistakes. 

Individuals can’t do much to make their System 1 decisions more accurate, so ultimately they can improve their thinking and decision-making only by training their System 2 to be vigilant for common System 1 mistakes and to stop being so lazy.  The book is replete with examples of common System 1 errors, such as:

• WYSIATI (what you see is all there is).  Instead of thinking about how limited our knowledge is, we assume that we already know all that is needed to make a decision.
• Priming and framing.  Certain words prime our thinking, and the framing of an issue can control our decision.
• The law of small numbers.  Our decisions are not restrained even though we have only small numbers.  Our bias is toward confidence instead of doubt.
• Anchors.  Our thinking is significantly affected by the anchor number (starting point).  That is why you feel better about buying a $20 shirt that was previously $40 as compared to a $15 shirt that was previously $25, even though both shirts are essentially the same.

As I said, the book is filled with examples too many to mention.  The example that totally confused me was called, “Causes trump statistics” or the Bayesian inference:

• A cab was involved in a hit-and-run accident at night.  Two cab companies, the Green and the Blue, operate in the city.  You are given the following data:
  • 85% of the cabs in the city are Green and 15% are Blue.
  • A witness identified the cab as Blue.  The court tested the reliability of the witness under the circumstances that existed on the night of the accident and concluded that the witness correctly identified each one of the two colors 80% of the time and failed 20% of the time.
• What was the probability that the cab involved in the accident was Blue rather than Green?

According to Kahneman, “The two sources of information can be combined by Bayes’s rule.  The correct answer is 41%.  However, you can probably guess what people do when faced with this problem: they ignore the base rate and go with the witness.  The most common answer is 0%.”  Count me the same as most people.

Early in his career, Kahneman was asked by the Israel government to create a high school textbook for teaching kids how to improve their decision-making.  For a bunch of bureaucratic reasons, the project was never completed.  Sounds like a great idea to me.  Thinking Fast and Slow is one of the most interesting, insightful books that I have read in a long time, and I believe most kids would benefit immensely from being exposed to the concepts.