The WEIRDEST People in the World - Joseph Henrich

 A potentially fascinating book exploring the psychological and conceptual differences between the Western European psyche and culture and that of the rest of the world, and how this helps explain the rise and dominance of the West.  He looks at all kinds of things - individualism vs. social and familial integration,  social cohesion vs. individual perception and judgement, the locus of causality and guilt, and many others.

One interesting point that he makes is how the Catholic Church revolutionized social relations in the West by forbidding cousin marriage, thereby forcing people to reach out beyond their immediate familial circles to develop a wider web of relations.

Unfortunately, the book delves into the background, research and experiments a bit too deeply and it begins to drag.  I would like to read a version with the main themes and conclusions and a simple summary of the background related to each.  Because of this quality, I couldn't finish the book.

Try again, reading only the beginning and end of each section for the main points and themes.

Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow - Yuval Noah Harari

A very interesting look at some of the possible important trends emerging as a result of technological change largely.  A look at how human potential is shifting as technology changes.
Some main themes:

- human immortality; the possibility of drastically increasing the human life span

- the slow, step-by-step ceding of control of decisions to technology (smartphones), big data and AI; what happens if (when?) AI begins to set its own priorities

- a brutal look at how humans have manipulated biology to produce the modern meat factory;  the possibility that intelligent computers could come to treat humans in a similar fashion

- the importance of the stories we tell in the evolution of humans and society

- threats to liberalism as humans become less necessary as a work force

- the concept of living beings as algorithms; problems and issues with this idea

A brief summary.  A very dense book.  Worth rereading.

The Festival of Insignificance - Milan Kundera

The essence of Kundera in telegraphic form.  As he gets older, his books become almost crystalline reflections of the essences of the themes he has explored through his entire oeuvre.  One sentence, one detail about a character will call up a whole chain of characters, ideas, comments from his other longer early novels.  One comment on a young woman can summarize all his reflections and views on the modern age.  All of it built around his usual structures:  older men, younger women; sons and mothers; the undercurrents between friends and loose acquaintances...
This idea of insignificance seems like some kind of final position on his long exploration of the history of modern European/Western culture.  In earlier books he bemoans the loss of all this nuance, reflection, interplay of idea and the world;  in this book his seems resigned, maybe even finding a freedom in this realization of insignificance?

There is a funny sequence that returns through the book, where he brings in Stalin and his cronies.  The idea around these sequences is the philosophical idea of the relationship between reality and our representation or perception of it.  There are two possible positions:  one, we cannot know reality, only our perceptions, but these personal representations have some kind of relationship to the real; two, we have only our representations and there is no underlying real (or it is completely unknowable).  Kundera seems to see Stalin (and other total autocratic regimes afloat on a world of propaganda and ideology) as definitive proof of the second position.  Reality is unknowable, individual, and a strong individual can force everyone to accept their representation, whatever the individual's personal experience might be.  Some relationship to the trap of language here and the relationship between language and perception...

Another great passage:  "... I've wanted to talk to you about something.  About the value of insignificance... Insignificance, my friend, is the essence of existence.  It is all around us, and everywhere and always.  It is present even when no one wants to see it:  in horror, in bloody battles, in the worst disasters.  It often takes courage to acknowledge it in such dramatic situations, and to call it by name.  But it is not only a matter of acknowledging it, we must love insignificance, we must learn to love it... my friend, inhale this insignificance that's all around us, it is the key to wisdom, it is the key to a good mood..."  p113

Why Grow Up? Subversive Thoughts for an Infantile Age - Susan Neiman

Great title, but a bit of a disappointment.  Really an overview of philosophers since Rousseau thinking about childhood, becoming an adult and acquiring an education.  A bit of a slow read.  She addresses some of the issues Crawford does in The World Beyond Your Head, but in a more indirect, discursive kind of way, rather than firmly anchored in examples.

You learn a lot about both Rousseau's ideas and Kant's ideas in reading this book.

The World Beyond Your Head - Matthew B. Crawford

Subtitled:  On Becoming and Individual in an Age of Distraction


A broader scope than his exploration of work on work, Shop Class as Soul Craft.

A complex set of ideas.

He explores things like:

- the importance of connecting with the real world as opposed to the virtual world or the inner world

- the concept of freedom, not as 'freedom from' but freedom as mastery of areas of agency

- the importance of attention to the world and people out there

- the modern drift to interiority where encounters with the world and unmediated others is seen as a bother, as something risky

- touches on the culture of safety and the 'smooth society' (for lack of a better word)  where there is no conflict, no jagged edges - essentially the tasteless, flavourless corporate culture and culture of school

- the longterm social and psychological effects of our current view that everyone is a self-made person

- how the concept of revolution in the arts in the early 20th century, by throwing out tradition and history of the arts, ended up killing the arts that were being revolutionized - acutally, no surprise when you consider the results of violent social revolutions in the 20th century in Russian and especially China;  the very culture itself is destroyed and replaced by nothing, or by money and consumerism

Worth rereading, maybe even buying.

The Moral Lives of Animals - Dale Peterson

A fascinating book with personal anecdotes and scientific research centred around the presence of such "moral" values as empathy, selflessness, helpfulness, generosity, kindness, fairness etc.  He offers many instances of animals demonstrating this moral attributes that are often seen as originating in religion.  The book presents the case that these traits go way back from an evolutionary point of view as useful behaviours, especially in the context of social animals and animals living in groups.  

Worth rereading as it is impossible to truly appreciate the wealth of information and reflections around this topic in just one read.

Trouble in Paradise - Slavoj Zizek

Supposedly a critique of capitalism in four parts.  Zizek makes some interesting points but I find them rather overwhelmed by terminology and ruminations based on cultural theory a la Lacan et cie. Theoretical ramblings, polemical asides and divagations into current hot issues make it hard to follow his critical threads.
Maybe if you have background in Marxist theory, psychoanalysis and postmodernism this book would be approachable.

Comments about Zizek (and even more so about Lacan) are very mixed - from brilliance to charlatanism.

A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe - Fernando Pessoa

A reference from Tabucchi.
A portuguese poet from the early/mid 20th century.  Wrote under several identities, each "author" with a distinct style, thematic.  Fairly philosophical as poetry
I enjoyed the unusual perspectives on the world in some of the poems, but some are a bit too heavy handedly idea based.
Worth flipping through.

Islamic Patterns: An Analytical and Cosmological Approach - Keith Critchlow

A fascinating look at the underlying geometry and design principles of traditional islamic decorative patterns.  There are many examples of how the patterns are built geometrically through several steps and transformations.  Watching the shapes go through their transformations and patterns is fascinating.

Another intriguing element in the book is the cosmology and philosophy behind these patterns.  They are not just decorative; they also express a profound world view.  They are seen as an expression of the One, the unity in all things.  Through geometry, the circle, the square and the triangle become one, interconnected variations on the theme of Oneness, with the circle as the most primal or basic form.  There are strong links to the Pythagorean theory and cosmology of numbers.

To find:
Pythagorean cosmology and number theory

Al Qaeda and What It Means to be Modern - John Gray

The first part of this book presents in an organized way his ideas on the various aspects of the Enlightenment, and how they have informed not only modern capitalism, but also communism and also modern forms of extremism based on the remaking of man and society or the rule of pure  reason.  While I find it a bit shallower than his usual vignette style of presenting and interweaving various threads of ideas, it is presented in a clearer form.

Unfortunately, the last half of the book rambles and rants a bit.  He falls into various (delirious) imaginings of the future, and it begins to sound a  bit "mullah-ish", ranting with the pointer finger raised etc.

Straw Dogs - John Gray

Subtitle:  Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals

Another brilliant social critique by this amazingly well-read author.  By shifting out of the view of the privileged place of humankind, Gray finds a point of view that seems to allow him to tunnel through many of the myths that define our modern view of man, society, the world, the point of it all.

Written in short excerpts that seemingly jump from topic to topic, behind it lies a slowly assembled critique, perspective, understanding that is jarringly clear and revolutionary (?)

It is hard to summarize this book.  Great for dipping into randomly to read a section or two.

A Universe from Nothing: Why There is Something Rather Than Nothing - Lawrence M. Krauss

A fascinating account of the gradual emergence of modern cosmology and theories of the origins of the universe.  Makes a great story - reading it at the same time as reading The Science Delusion by Curtis White - see my entry on that book regarding science and storytelling.   It's all language after all, and words are not the thing in itself.

After having looked at White's book, I am much more aware of the arrogance, prejudices and stereotypes at play in Krauss' book - so much for the objective delusion.  Rather like the Ayn Rand revealed in Part 1 of All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Tenderness, these hardcore materialists with their notion of reason and objective truth are not what they seem to be, nor who they see themselves to be.

It is so easy to see, and portray this obsession with scientific truth, reason and objectivity as a new form of religion, a new all-encompassing system, a new Answer - especially when you see what a mess, what wackjobs many of the leading modern figures have been.

The ideas themselves are intriguing and entertaining.

The Science Delusion - Curtis White

Interesting read.  An attack on scientific materialism.  I don't relate that much to Curtis' indignation, but then again I don't have to put up with the arrogance of scientists on a regular basis, not working at  a university.  I am currently reading one of the books he criticizes so sharply - Why There is Something Rather Than Nothing:  A Universe from Nothing.  I have realized I don't see scientific cosmology as a threat in itself (how it is used by politics and Big Business is another matter).  To me, current research and theories on cosmology, the nature and origin of the universe, life, etc. are fascinating stories (which is a bit of an insight in itself RE me and my attitudes...)  Other stories from other domaines can be just as fascinating - I am reminded of Italo Calvino's Cosmicomiche.

What this books has, though, is an amazing set of references to writers on ontological perspectives and speculators on the nature of reality.  A real mine to be explored.

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace - Adam Curtis

This is actually a series of three BBC documentaries.  It is actually a critical history of most, if not all, the important cultural, intellectual and social factors/powers/themes of the past 60 years.
Kind of disturbing, as I am personally familiar with most of what he examines...
The first one is called Love and Power, and looks at how computer logic coupled with the extreme rationalism (supposedly) of Ayn Rand's philosophy combine to distort our understanding of society, ourselves, and the world around us.  It traces the emergence of the model of the "machine" and how it has come to be applied to more and more areas of life.  The concept of systems and how it simplifies and distorts our understanding of ourselves and the world we live in.
A fascinating but complex film - ties in Silicon Valley with Buckminster Fuller, the commune movement and the 60's counterculture, the rise of Wall Street, the demise of the political class, the ties between the Federal Reserve and Wall Street - Curtis just hits on everything, even Richard Brautigan!  The concept of decentralized social order based on direct communication and crowd sourcing of social evolution, as currently embodied in the internet, formerly in the idea of communes.  How the disenchantment with politics, coupled with the Ayn Rand extreme individualism and the concept of materialism applied to people and society, has empowered business elites and left most of us in a position of powerlessness.  Our refusal to deal with issues of politics and power (and class) in our social discourse - the issue that seems to have scuppered commune movement - you can only wonder who's interest it is in to make such discussion and analysis socially unacceptable...

All told with many great clips from the BBC archives.  As a film in itself, cry creatively executed.

Brings back lots of memories of Sue and her friends, and other hippy types I hung out with when I was 16, 17, 18.

This concept of systems - yes, the systems Curtis looks at are false, simplified.  They are not, nor can be, the truth.  In line with that saying, "The menu is not the meal."  But this goes back to the idea that all systems in the end are false.  They are constructs of our intellect, therefore limited by who and what we are, what we know (R.D. Lang - our understanding is limited by what we don't know, and because we don't know what we don't know, there's not much we can do about it.  Which leads to Robert Andon Wilson's "Maybe Logic".)  Maybe the problem is in the wanting to find a system that explains everything, in the need to develop the overarching theory, the desire to eliminate contradiction, opacity and inconsistency.  The desire to Understand with a capital U - Dr. Faust.   The desire for certainty.  Any system contains within itself its own seeds of destruction - the phenomena it can't contain. Worship of reason leading to a kind of hubris leading to what is essentially a tragedy - many of the scientists Curtis looks at were pretty weird fucks...  Science as the new religion in the sense that it promotes and produces all the same evils and negative effects that grow out of dogmatic religion.

Maybe Logic - Robert Anton Wilson

A DVD by a very interesting character from the 60s who recently died.  A great look into some of the underlying philosophy and thinking from the more interesting fringes of the 60s.  The idea of "reality tunnels" and many other philosophical (ontological) speculations.  Worth watching again.