An alternately dispiriting and bracing dissection of loneliness and how to build community from the ground up.
An economist and business adviser delves into “the ideological underpinnings of the twenty-first century’s loneliness crisis.”
As Hertz notes, we live in a predominantly lonely world, a condition exacerbated by ever increasing social and economic inequality. When people feel they have only themselves to fall back on—lacking support from employers, the government, or our communities—is it any wonder that loneliness is the result? The situation is so bad that in 2018, the U.K. appointed a Minister of Loneliness for the disconnected, and the elderly in Japan are known to commit petty crimes in order to go to jail, “a sanctuary that provides not only company but also support and care.” With plenty of anecdotes and scholarly referenced footnotes, the author meticulously picks apart our everyday world to reveal the many wellsprings of our loneliness, and she points to helpful first steps to deal with it. The trick, writes Hertz, is “to reconnect capitalism to the pursuit of the common good and put care, compassion and cooperation at its very heart.” Of course, that is quite the undertaking; some readers may even consider it impossible, but many will find some comfort in these pages. Hertz diligently scrolls through the many causes of our existential conundrum, including living alone, the bustle of big-city life (“when confronted with all those people our default is often to withdraw”), contactless commerce, smartphone addiction, openly aggressive urban planning, the surveillance workplace, and a government that fails to prioritize libraries, parks, playgrounds, and community centers. Hertz also touches on the alienation of artificial intelligence and the downsides of co-living spaces, and she offer curative suggestions along the way—e.g., redefining work to deliver not just a salary, but “meaning, purpose, camaraderie and support”; committing to public service; and transforming ourselves “from consumers to citizens, from takers to givers, from casual observers to active participants.”
An alternately dispiriting and bracing dissection of loneliness and how to build community from the ground up.Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-13583-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Currency
Review Posted Online: July 28, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2020
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
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