Really excellent interweaving of fiction and philosophy and again such clear writing. His Status Anxiety was good enough for my to buy my own copy andReally excellent interweaving of fiction and philosophy and again such clear writing. His Status Anxiety was good enough for my to buy my own copy and this one is likely to be on my shelf as well, since my wife and I will be wanting to reread parts of this over the years. So many extremely useful and thoughtful things, communicated in such clear writing. ...more
Explains very well how you can most successfully approach having a natural birth in a hospital, easily readable, and varies between the philosophy/minExplains very well how you can most successfully approach having a natural birth in a hospital, easily readable, and varies between the philosophy/mindset you need to approach this adventure and more practical aspects like the biology behind it and the logistical checklists you might want to keep in mind. We'll see how it goes!...more
There's a lot that's ridiculous in here but there are enough nuggets that a lot of people could find it helpful. To me, what I took from it, it's an eThere's a lot that's ridiculous in here but there are enough nuggets that a lot of people could find it helpful. To me, what I took from it, it's an examination of what smart, calm, confident, and compassionate men should be - what masculinity should be. They paint it with a lot of anthropological mumbojumbo and while some of the rituals surrounding the casting off of childhood and being an adult are interesting, and the description of a masculinity without braggadocio, aggression, stupidity, and bigotry is very compelling, I also think most of the positive attributes are open to women as well....more
I read this to get a perspective from Deepak Chopra (assuming that I would agree with the non-believing physicist Mlodinow) but possibly gain some insI read this to get a perspective from Deepak Chopra (assuming that I would agree with the non-believing physicist Mlodinow) but possibly gain some insight from everyone's favorite metaphysical doctor mystic with the funny name. He seems like he wants people to be good, and it's always good to challenge your mind with new perspectives. I ended up agreeing with Mlodinow and getting angrier and angrier at the pat, straw man, intentionally obtuse and dense arguments Chopra used on most questions. No, it's not okay to just attack some of the bad things that have come out of scientific discovery when someone points out that you have to have proof in order to find the truth of how the world works. And yes, ethics are critical when making decisions on what we should do about things, and what concepts mean. You can be an ethical person who thinks science explains the world, and that religion/spirituality/metaphysics/whatever CAN bring good to the world but often doesn't, and can't be relied upon to explain how things work. It's possible they have the answers, but they can't say they have the answers just because they say they have the answers. You have to ante up and show some proof - otherwise I'm just not able to take you seriously. I'll go with science to explain the world to me, and then take a look for good ideas of how we should operate within that world (spirituality offers some of those good ideas).
This isn't to say that Chopra doesn't make some good arguments of why people should do good. But those instances are few and far between his odd leaps of logic and tendency to ignore Mlodinow's questions.
Humans are amazing creatures in that some of us become so sure that there's a benevolent man/woman/being behind the curtain, some couldn't care less, and some really just don't think so (though they'd be amazed and happy to see any evidence of one). I had hoped for a better and more honest conversation from this book....more
I liked The Prophet much more than I was expecting to like it. It's a classic and I'm not sure I could analyze it any further than it already has beenI liked The Prophet much more than I was expecting to like it. It's a classic and I'm not sure I could analyze it any further than it already has been. Essentially it's a collection of pretty good advice, of how to live your life. There were only a few areas where I rolled my eyes or shook my head in liberal, secular disapproval. He goes from birth to death, work to leisure, love to loneliness. You've heard a chunk of his marriage advice plenty of times at weddings. It's well written, once you're past the odd device he uses to get the wise man to impart his wisdom. Flowy language that almost makes you want to read the bible.
It's something you might want to have on your shelf throughout your life, kind of like a sequel to a holy book, without the holy part. I'm sure that if this were written today, the advice wouldn't have to change a whole lot - it's that timeless....more
Eating Animals starts out with assurance that it will not be a manifesto for vegetarianism, and Foer does his best to present a measured, scholarly, iEating Animals starts out with assurance that it will not be a manifesto for vegetarianism, and Foer does his best to present a measured, scholarly, informed, and compassionate report on the way we get our meat - which is 99% obtained through factory farms, slaughterhouses, and industrial fishing. It ends as exactly what he said it wouldn't be: a manifesto for vegetarianism.
You can tell he didn't want to end up there - his research and reporting are fair and somewhat detached, even as he's explaining how factory farms keep animals sick and cramped, pumped full of hormones and antibiotics, and then inhumanely slaughter them - too often cutting them apart while still accidentally alive; pollute the planet with poo and industrial fertilizer; serve as hotbeds of virulent diseases (bird flu, swine flu, etc); run small family farms out of business through heavy-handed Mafia-like tactics, and generally assault our consciences. Fishing doesn't escape either - the current industrial fishing system often will throw back 90% of what it catches, after killing or mangling the creatures, and we're so efficient at using 75 mile long nets and sonar to catch fish that there's very little left to reproduce. He goes from this extreme (and likely accurate) view of the current agri- and aqua-business system to farmers trying to do things better. Michael Pollan's admiration for Polyface Farm doesn't escape the criticism that Polyface Farm uses a factory slaughterhouse and Joel Salatin's turkeys are the same genetically mangled birds that the factory farms use, that cannot naturally reproduce and die young because they can't walk after a certain age due to the size of their breasts, like sacrificial Barbies. He even finds a vegan who designs human slaughterhouses (mobile so as to keep the animals from stressing out during transportation), but of course the big slaughterhouse businesses put him out of business.
Foer's reaction to this bleak but accurate view of the way we get our meat is, for him, to stop eating meat. The whole reason he began looking into the food system is because after his son was born, he wanted the answer to the question "what should we feed him?" and further, "what should we feed ourselves?" He believes that the only morally, environmentally, and economically viable answer is to eat only vegetables and not kill animals. He doesn't say you're a bad person if you eat animals, just not informed enough, and he tries to inform you. That's the only conclusion he could draw.
But I don't think it's this black and white. Foer probably made a few thousand people stop eating meat. This has admirable environmental, ethical, biological, and economical ramifications. However, what if he'd made several million people dramatically reduce their meat consumption, so that it wasn't the culinary center of every meal? What if those millions then did their best to seek out meat that was organic, pasture-fed, family farm raised, and humanely slaughtered? Wouldn't this have a larger effect of the industry and actually cause less meat to be eaten than a few thousand vegetarians?
Once we start to draw boxes around what we eat - no mammals or birds due to inhumane slaughtering, no fish due to overfishing, no non-organic veggies due to pesticides and Roundup, no non-heirloom vegetables due to the chokehold Monsanto has over plants' DNA (even soy), no dairy because of the treatment of dairy cows, no sugar because some diet says it's bad for you - what is left to eat? I have no problem with the rationale against those types of foods, but I have a problem with the uncompromising nature of drawing those boxes. You reach more people through moderation than through tee-totaling. And I think that's the conclusion I've reached after reading this and some Michael Pollan. Moderation is the best avenue down which to make the choices we wish to make. At least for me....more
Octavia Butler really does know how to write a tight, gripping story that challenges your assumptions, and Parable of the Sower doesn't disappoint. I Octavia Butler really does know how to write a tight, gripping story that challenges your assumptions, and Parable of the Sower doesn't disappoint. I read The Road last year, and while that was a story about what happens after society disintegrates and no one's left, this book was a story about society having disintegrated with a lot of people left. It seems scarily realistic - vast gulfs between the well-off and the poor, how moral systems might break down, climate change, water shortages, economic collapse. Butler keeps her story driving forward, and there's always a seed of hope in the basic decency of your fellow human. I don't want to give too much of it away, but it's safe to say I'll try out her other books....more
I've been a little wary of Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma, but I can't for the life of me remember why. Maybe I was worried it's a guilt bombI've been a little wary of Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma, but I can't for the life of me remember why. Maybe I was worried it's a guilt bomb that makes you feel bad about eating anything that doesn't have a face? I've been on a decades-long eating arc away from an all-chocolate-chip-cookie-and-milk diet and toward veggies and good lean meats. Not that I've stopped with the cookies, but it's dawned on me that I can't make an entire dinner out of them. I hear diabetes is a total bummer.
Anyhow, I'm so glad I read this.
He takes you through an educational, compassionate, funny, and really really interesting trip backwards from your plate. Or more realistically, your bun, your hand, or however you eat the Big Mac. Fortunately, he doesn't stop here, or this book would just be another Fast Food Nation. Though he does trace back how the corn is grown and fed to the cattle and chickens, and industrially processed to form such a huge percentage of your Coke and sauce and chicken McNugget, he doesn't try for the Upton Sinclair oeuvre by exposing the inner workings of slaughterhouses. He definitely gives you a picture of what happens (though he's not even allowed into the facility), but the focus is more on the affect the corn-based food has on your body. Corn is fascinating, and terrifying.
He then tries for a meal harvested from his local Whole Foods, and provides an interesting take on the industrial organic food industry. The basic takeaway is that it's a good thing so many farms are going organic because they're not putting lots of unneeded chemicals into the groundwater etc, but the processes are often not too different from non-organic factory farms. Grass-fed free-range chickens can receive that appellation by "having access" to grass and open fields for some portion of their lives. The farms keep the doors to the outside locked for most of the first few months of life, and then open them a few weeks before slaughter. Predictably, chickens living their entire lives inside don't run outside as soon as they have the chance, so often don't have any range to be free on. But they also don't have a lot of chemicals and antibiotics put into their food. So it's a great step forward and if we can get all food produced this way and reduce the cost in the process, the planet and our health will be a lot better off.
If we could all eat his third meal, we'd all be happier and healthier. He goes to Polyface Farm in Virginia, where they raise chicken, cows, pigs, and veggies. But if you ask the farmers, they say they raise grass. All animals are pastured in sequence. In one paddock, separated by mobile fences, grass experiences a cow munching it down to an inch off the ground (as it's used to on an evolutionary scale), and then getting pooped on by the cows, which enrich the soil. Then they're moved, and chickens move in (as birds around the world follow herbivore herds) and eat the grubs in the now-short grass and the bugs attracted to the cow paddies. The chickens poop all over, nourishing the grass further. Then the grass gets time to relax and grow, and the cycle starts again. They let trees grow to keep moisture in, saving on irrigation and cooling down the animals. There's also, you might guess, a very elaborate composting system. This is a very self-sufficient farm. At work we just signed up for Arganica.com, which lets us order local organic food to be delivered every week, and to my delight, Polyface Farm meat is available. At least, it is theoretically. The downside to farms like this is that it's probably not scalable and you don't have the 400 cows being slaughtered every hour that permit me to go to the supermarket any day of the week to get a steak. But the meat from grass-fed beef and chicken, and the veggies that take advantage of this cycle are supposed to taste amazing and be very good for you. I can testify to the eggs - true pasture-fed chicken eggs are delicious. I'll let you know if they ever fill our order for Polyface steak.
His fourth meal is based entirely out of gathered food. He grows veggies in his garden, hunts a wild pig in Northern CA, gathers yeast from the air outside, and picks fruit from neighbors' fruit trees. Fascinating. And about 2 months of work for a single dinner.
I'd highly recommend this book. He deals with vegetarianism in a very honest way and I believe gives all sides a fair shot. The quibble I had early on in the book was when he discussed how setting scientists loose on the makeup of food was a bad thing, because they identified what nutrients are important and industrialized the food chain. He makes the claim that by introducing science to the understanding of food and creating, say, multivitamins, aspects of food that weren't understood back then (isoflavones, omega 3 fatty acids, etc) were eliminated from people's diets. My response as I was reading this was "but that's how science works - that prior understanding of food held up until scientists experimenting more recently found that other compounds in food were important for digestion or fighting cancer." He went off on pseudoattack on science that made no sense.
But that blip wasn't enough to take the fifth star off the review - I was very impressed by this book, and his motto: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly vegetables."...more
Jonathan Livingston Seagull is a 70s New Age classic. I'd also been told it's a Christian allegory, and I definitely saw why people think that, too. BJonathan Livingston Seagull is a 70s New Age classic. I'd also been told it's a Christian allegory, and I definitely saw why people think that, too. Basically Jonathan loves flying, instead of eating and fighting for food like the other seagulls. He discovers amazing new ways of flying fast, acrobatic flying, etc etc. The other seagulls don't like this and exile him. He then kind of goes to heaven, but then returns, and teaches other like-minded gulls. It's inspiring and the message that you should do what you love, and strive for art and beauty and compassion is all right there. If I'd read it when I was younger, I would have taken it as encouragement to keep reading. But I also would have continued to not eat a lot. Because Jonathan only eats once in the whole book, and I got worried he would waste away. Silly I know, but when the other birds tell him he's wasting his time and should eat more, I was also asking him when the last time he ate was. The clueless "flock" shouldn't be able to make such a good point. Regardless, I thought it was at least interesting enough to know what it was about, but I was very glad it was so short. ...more
Interesting take on how checklists - thinking through what you need to do before you do it, or as you do it - can really help effectiveness. He uses tInteresting take on how checklists - thinking through what you need to do before you do it, or as you do it - can really help effectiveness. He uses the medical profession and halting mistakes/infections as the focus of the book, but it's really applicable for a lot of what we do. Interesting writing, clear voice. There's a reason everyone loves him....more
What, you were expecting me to read Camus' The Stranger and attempt to give an intelligent literary or philosophical review that says something profouWhat, you were expecting me to read Camus' The Stranger and attempt to give an intelligent literary or philosophical review that says something profound and new? Not even going to try. I will, however, posit that Meursault, the main character, is actually a self-absorbed, psychopathic Ford Prefect that went to Algeria after he realized that he was stuck on Earth while writing the Earth entry to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Meursault (Ford's pseudonym, obviously) is a dispassionate observer of reality and Earth culture, and barely reacts to what people normally assume humans would react to, and pays deep attention to the mundane. Ford to a T. He's often not engaged, stares off at nothing (probably looking toward his home planet in the vicinity of Betelgeuse), and the traditional moral code of Earth culture has little bearing on him. He doesn't understand when people are aghast at his aloofness after his mother's death, because his mother is actually in another solar system.
He's also a little depressed and psychopathic due to his realization that he can't leave the planet and falls in with bad company. He doesn't care. He's also still getting used to English. He therefore speaks in short sentences. Camus was wise to notice this.
Okay, short of that breakthrough, I've got little else to say about The Stranger. It didn't really teach me anything about French culture (other than the caricature of existentialist French philosophers smoking cigarettes in cafes saying "ça ne fait rien"). I got the cursory philosophical understanding my mind is capable of in the exploration of existentialism and lack of meaning. It wasn't a very enjoyable read, and I'd only recommend it to people who want a quick exploration of these themes. Meursault's a jerk who couldn't care less about anything, but instead of just sitting there, his only actions are to make other people's lives worse (except maybe Maria's). I don't have time for people like this, not even imaginary antagonists. He disqualifies himself as the protagonist, in my view.
One more note - I wonder what atheist thinkers say about this book. Granted, the chaplain and the magistrate he deals with are more representations of overt dogma, forced meaning, and outmoded ideas about the reason for guilt. Yet Meursault catapults himself so far away from decency, while also attacking religion, that things get tricky if people assume all atheists are like this. I'd be curious to hear how folks of secular inclinations have dealt with books like this.
I guess I was just expecting a little more from a book that's so critically acclaimed. But I could absolutely change my mind. It doesn't really matter in the end, after all. Right?...more
I think I was expecting a slightly different book than what I got. The synopsis as I understood it was that he'd explain why compact cities are actualI think I was expecting a slightly different book than what I got. The synopsis as I understood it was that he'd explain why compact cities are actually the ideal form of ecological living. Manhattan is his heaven - mainly because apartments are thermally efficient and don't take a lot of space, it's easy to live and commute without cars, and lots of people take advantage of things that pollute in efficient ways. The suburbs and rural areas, to him, are terrible because you're required to drive everywhere, houses are inefficient, there is a lot of wasted space and resources, and the infrastructure required to support people so spaced out is very inefficient.
These are all great points, but he ends up ignoring and too easily brushing aside some huge points pertaining to the inherent wastefulness of cities and some of the benefits of quieter, simpler living.
However, his larger point that he makes repeatedly in the book is that the steps we usually take or try to take to reduce our carbon footprint, be less wasteful, increase efficiency, etc, all actually are worse for the environment than not doing so. He starts with the familiar critique of recycling (it doesn't actually do much, the act of recycling is a panacea that makes us feel good, the process requires a lot of energy, and it allows us to consume at high levels) and then applies essentially the same argument to installing solar panels or wind turbines, planting trees, eating local foods, driving hybrid cars, installing high tech efficient windows, hydrogen fuel cells, and dozens of others. Many of these criticisms could be good points, and it makes you truly think about what we're trying to do when we talk about "saving the planet." However, he stays in the gloom by not recommending anything that he'd consider actually useful. He doesn't go much beyond insulation, consuming less (which he acknowledges is useful up to a point but becomes impossible as the asymptote approaches the line), living in apartments, not driving at all, and telling other people not to live outside of cities. Yes, he writes this book and then justifies his own life in northwestern Connecticut in an old house with multiple cars.
He also dislikes DC - apparently when he stayed in a hotel downtown he asked the bellman for walking directions to a building about a mile away. The bellman said he should take a cab, and from that he concluded that everyone in DC must drive cars, never walk, and live in a city with too-short buildings that aren't set up well for walking. Suuure. I walk all the time, see people walking all the time, rarely drive, and see much fewer cars on the streets than I do in Manhattan. Also, we live in an apartment building.
He also goes to Dubai and Beijing and rightfully laments that such new development proceeds in a manner that ignores what will happen when oil becomes prohibitively expensive. It's truly a shame that new development can't be built around more comfortable, sustainable living - that driving seems to be a status symbol and therefore new cities are developed in such a way as to make the drivers' lives easier.
It's not an uplifting book, but it's a great read - he treats the science with respect, and even if I'd guess his politics run a little libertarian, he doesn't get into the nonregulation weeds too badly. I'd love to read an honest book of his recommendations, or if he'd just want us to follow Jimmy Carter's advice and turn down the thermostat and put on a sweater....more
Really interesting. I don't tend to read this kind of thing, but I saw his TED talk about status, and despite status being something I don't think aboReally interesting. I don't tend to read this kind of thing, but I saw his TED talk about status, and despite status being something I don't think about a lot, his delivery was interesting and he had some solid ideas.
The book's a short philosophical exercise that goes through causes, and then solutions, of anxiety we feel about status. Both run the gamut from religion, politics, lovelessness, history, and other ways of looking at how we've looked at life over the last couple millennia. Do we put up with gargantuan divides between the high status folks and low status folks because we think people get what they deserve? Because we think that after we die people get to "live" in the way they should have in life? Because there's a constant struggle to right the system (the arc of justice is long but bends toward justice)? Because the world's mean, and mean people can get what they want by taking it (and give their high status to their kids who are equally undeserving)? And why do we feel the need to compare ourselves to each other?
He answers some of these questions, but the value is in raising the questions in interesting and well-thought-out manners.
Most importantly, his writing is superb, and clear. It's a book I'll end up buying some time soon so as to have an example of clear writing when I'm feeling unclear (just as I'll read a bit of Bill Bryson to get in the witty/funny mood for an email I've been meaning to write). ...more
I thought this would be a little more historical and devote less pages to a religious vocabulary than I am not used to absorbing (liturgy, ecclesiologI thought this would be a little more historical and devote less pages to a religious vocabulary than I am not used to absorbing (liturgy, ecclesiology, monastic, eucharine, etc etc). Also, apparently Marionology (Mary) and Christology (Jesus) are words. And disciplines. Yes, religious scholars have taken scientific terminology and used it on characters in the bible, and have devoted whole areas of study to them. I just don't get it.
I skimmed through pretty quickly over the parts that had constant biblical citations or paragraph after paragraph of the aforementioned language. But the parts I did read were a slightly interesting summation of the history of the church, albeit one-sided. I will give McBrien credit for acknowledging some of the seedier sides and epochs of the Catholic church, and celebrating the small steps forward (he particularly loves Vactican II, and he wrote warmly about Pope John Paul II genuflecting at the Wailing Wall and writing some apologetic things about the Holocaust. So that's nice. Bu the rest of the book either bored me to death, or insulted my intelligence. I just don't understand a life, be it layman or scholarly, devoted to these amorphous formulations, theories, terminologies, and artifices of faith. I'd understand if it was historical (in fact, that's exactly what I was hoping this book would be), but it's pseudohistory. It's scattered too-brief sketches of what the people behind the bible might have done, plus the bible itself, and then an examination of church behavior since its founding colored through esoteric and artificial terms like eucharist, body of Christ, Holy Ghost, and Church (evidently I still don't understand what they mean that word to mean).
So I gave it a shot! Now when I read my Dawkins, I have something to compare it to. ...more
Really interesting for the first 600 pages. Har har.
Exactly what I was looking for in terms of a book on a religion - it's essentially a narrative enReally interesting for the first 600 pages. Har har.
Exactly what I was looking for in terms of a book on a religion - it's essentially a narrative encyclopedia about Judaism. Goes through the Bible, religious texts, historical periods, and then contemporary practice and custom (the last bit I skimmed through). It picks out events, people, ideas, and places that you should know about to have some sort of literacy when thinking about Judaism (and by extension, good parts of Christianity, Islam, and world history). Really interesting. Each entry is anywhere from a few paragraphs to a few pages, usually brief and well written.
I almost gave it 4 stars because at times he tries to paint Judiasm as logically the best choice of religions, but then I realized he's a Rabbi, writing a book called Jewish Literacy, and my goyim self should be more surprised at how even-handed and restrained it really was. ...more
I had no idea what a book called Proust was a Neuroscientist would be about, but it came highly recommended on the intertubes. It was absolutely worthI had no idea what a book called Proust was a Neuroscientist would be about, but it came highly recommended on the intertubes. It was absolutely worth the read - his premise is that you can often find artists (be they painters, composers, authors, poets, or even a chef) that discovered interesting aspects of brain and sensory function before the science had a chance to think of experimenting on the ideas. It didn't really get anti-sciency, which was something I was nervous about after reading the introduction. But it's more that the artists served a function, in addition to producing their art, to become a font of hypotheses about the way we experience the world. It makes absolute sense - if science stays in the laboratory all the time, it won't function right. The best kind of science starts with people saying "I wonder why" or "I wonder if" - ideally triggered by doing things in the world. These cooks, writers and visionaries knew a lot more about the actual qualia (triple bonus word score for using the word that inspired my blog in an actual post) of existence than many of the scientists running experiments did at the time. Auguste Escoffier realized that we like hot food not just because you're supposed to cook the meat or warm ourselves up - it tasted better. Science figured out that the nose is more important to taste than the tongue is in terms of receptors. Impressionist painters saw the world in blotches and mixes of colors, which is actually how our eyes see the world. Our brains are relied upon to make sense of a very rudimentary primary set of visual data. Proust himself wrote very uniquely about memory (as did Virginia Woolf) - presenting people that don't remember things accurately, which is often ignored in fiction.
It's a neat introduction to some psychological and neurological ideas that definitely does not get bogged down in details. If you like Oliver Sacks, you'll like this book....more
Really glad I finally read this - it's just as funny and poignant and fun as people say it is. Really glad I finally read this - it's just as funny and poignant and fun as people say it is. ...more
I thought this one was fun. He really does seem to give it an honest try - highlighting the obscure biblical rules as well as the main ones. He has a I thought this one was fun. He really does seem to give it an honest try - highlighting the obscure biblical rules as well as the main ones. He has a fun way of putting things, but a slightly boring writing style. I was also disappointed in the paucity of historical explanation as he went through the rules of the bible. He'd touch on some of the history here and there, but I expected a lot of of "this is what is says in the bible, this is likely why the rule was put in there, this is what the people were like that wrote the bible, this is how they used to do it, this is how it's changed through the years." His handling of history was more scattershot. I got the feeling that he didn't want to offend all of the different people he consulted for guidance, and it got a little mushy.
That said, it was a very personal journey, and he did a lot of crazy and fun things. It was enjoyable on the whole....more
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