What recent books or articles have shifted your worldview?
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What books or articles have you read recently that fundamentally shifted the way you think about the world, and how you interact with it (work, social, play, whatever)?
Been reading Vonnegut again. Every tried him? Nothing Earth shattering in his works, but he examines what it means to be a human, and mostly concludes there ain't much meaning.
Sound depressing? Far from it! Vonnegut exposes the bullshit in our wider societal and political systems, but he brings it home to our individual lives. Slaughter House 5 is his most well known work, and not to be missed!
Been thinking about his thoughts on how we're suffering from not having larger families.
“OK, now let’s have some fun. Let’s talk about sex. Let’s talk about women. Freud said he didn’t know what women wanted. I know what women want. They want a whole lot of people to talk to. What do they want to talk about? They want to talk about everything.
What do men want? They want a lot of pals, and they wish people wouldn’t get so mad at them.
Why are so many people getting divorced today? It’s because most of us don’t have extended families anymore. It used to be that when a man and a woman got married, the bride got a lot more people to talk to about everything. The groom got a lot more pals to tell dumb jokes to.
A few Americans, but very few, still have extended families. The Navahos. The Kennedys.
But most of us, if we get married nowadays, are just one more person for the other person. The groom gets one more pal, but it’s a woman. The woman gets one more person to talk to about everything, but it’s a man.
When a couple has an argument, they may think it’s about money or power or sex, or how to raise the kids, or whatever. What they’re really saying to each other, though, without realizing it, is this:
“You are not enough people!”I met a man in Nigeria one time, an Ibo who has six hundred relatives he knew quite well. His wife had just had a baby, the best possible news in any extended family.
They were going to take it to meet all its relatives, Ibos of all ages and sizes and shapes. It would even meet other babies, cousins not much older than it was. Everybody who was big enough and steady enough was going to get to hold it, cuddle it, gurgle to it, and say how pretty it was, or handsome.
Wouldn't you have loved to be that baby?”
― Kurt Vonnegut, God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian
And I just wrote this while listening to my wife talk to all her friends and family for an hour, overseas and local. One of my coworkers had to go back to Kenya for his mom's funeral. He expected no less than 600 people to show out for a week long event, planned months in advance. Imagine that!
So when people on here are afraid of people I say, "You're not enough people!"
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Been reading Vonnegut again. Every tried him? Nothing Earth shattering in his works, but he examines what it means to be a human, and mostly concludes there ain't much meaning.
Sound depressing? Far from it! Vonnegut exposes the bullshit in our wider societal and political systems, but he brings it home to our individual lives. Slaughter House 5 is his most well known work, and not to be missed!
Been thinking about his thoughts on how we're suffering from not having larger families.
“OK, now let’s have some fun. Let’s talk about sex. Let’s talk about women. Freud said he didn’t know what women wanted. I know what women want. They want a whole lot of people to talk to. What do they want to talk about? They want to talk about everything.
What do men want? They want a lot of pals, and they wish people wouldn’t get so mad at them.
Why are so many people getting divorced today? It’s because most of us don’t have extended families anymore. It used to be that when a man and a woman got married, the bride got a lot more people to talk to about everything. The groom got a lot more pals to tell dumb jokes to.
A few Americans, but very few, still have extended families. The Navahos. The Kennedys.
But most of us, if we get married nowadays, are just one more person for the other person. The groom gets one more pal, but it’s a woman. The woman gets one more person to talk to about everything, but it’s a man.
When a couple has an argument, they may think it’s about money or power or sex, or how to raise the kids, or whatever. What they’re really saying to each other, though, without realizing it, is this:
“You are not enough people!”I met a man in Nigeria one time, an Ibo who has six hundred relatives he knew quite well. His wife had just had a baby, the best possible news in any extended family.
They were going to take it to meet all its relatives, Ibos of all ages and sizes and shapes. It would even meet other babies, cousins not much older than it was. Everybody who was big enough and steady enough was going to get to hold it, cuddle it, gurgle to it, and say how pretty it was, or handsome.
Wouldn't you have loved to be that baby?”
― Kurt Vonnegut, God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian
And I just wrote this while listening to my wife talk to all her friends and family for an hour, overseas and local. One of my coworkers had to go back to Kenya for his mom's funeral. He expected no less than 600 people to show out for a week long event, planned months in advance. Imagine that!
So when people on here are afraid of people I say, "You're not enough people!"
Great quote, excellent lesson, agreed.
I liked Slaughterhouse 5, bud fuck it was depressing. I loved Cat's Cradle. Only read a few other short stories, I think..
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Been reading Vonnegut again. Every tried him? Nothing Earth shattering in his works, but he examines what it means to be a human, and mostly concludes there ain't much meaning.
Sound depressing? Far from it! Vonnegut exposes the bullshit in our wider societal and political systems, but he brings it home to our individual lives. Slaughter House 5 is his most well known work, and not to be missed!
Been thinking about his thoughts on how we're suffering from not having larger families.
“OK, now let’s have some fun. Let’s talk about sex. Let’s talk about women. Freud said he didn’t know what women wanted. I know what women want. They want a whole lot of people to talk to. What do they want to talk about? They want to talk about everything.
What do men want? They want a lot of pals, and they wish people wouldn’t get so mad at them.
Why are so many people getting divorced today? It’s because most of us don’t have extended families anymore. It used to be that when a man and a woman got married, the bride got a lot more people to talk to about everything. The groom got a lot more pals to tell dumb jokes to.
A few Americans, but very few, still have extended families. The Navahos. The Kennedys.
But most of us, if we get married nowadays, are just one more person for the other person. The groom gets one more pal, but it’s a woman. The woman gets one more person to talk to about everything, but it’s a man.
When a couple has an argument, they may think it’s about money or power or sex, or how to raise the kids, or whatever. What they’re really saying to each other, though, without realizing it, is this:
“You are not enough people!”I met a man in Nigeria one time, an Ibo who has six hundred relatives he knew quite well. His wife had just had a baby, the best possible news in any extended family.
They were going to take it to meet all its relatives, Ibos of all ages and sizes and shapes. It would even meet other babies, cousins not much older than it was. Everybody who was big enough and steady enough was going to get to hold it, cuddle it, gurgle to it, and say how pretty it was, or handsome.
Wouldn't you have loved to be that baby?”
― Kurt Vonnegut, God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian
And I just wrote this while listening to my wife talk to all her friends and family for an hour, overseas and local. One of my coworkers had to go back to Kenya for his mom's funeral. He expected no less than 600 people to show out for a week long event, planned months in advance. Imagine that!
So when people on here are afraid of people I say, "You're not enough people!"
Yeah it was fun growing up visiting my uncles and aunts families and meeting my cousins, family drama and moving away for work ended most of our communication over the years, I kinda miss my cousins but they are married now and have their own separate lives, I've never even met most of my nieces and nephews. Plus my university friends are all scattered now as well, I'm not sure how I can even make new friends now in my 30s, just hoping I find a good partner and that's enough
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Great quote, excellent lesson, agreed.
I liked Slaughterhouse 5, bud fuck it was depressing. I loved Cat's Cradle. Only read a few other short stories, I think..
Cat's Cradle was great!
"No damn cat, and no damn cradle.”
I pictured the dwarf as Peter Dinklage and it was a perfect fit!
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What books or articles have you read recently that fundamentally shifted the way you think about the world, and how you interact with it (work, social, play, whatever)?
Great Expectations (yes, by Dickens) pushed me away from "trying" a religious affiliation
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Not entirely sure how this relates to feedbacks.. But if you're interested in the paradox of tolerance, you might also find this interesting - reframing the problem as a social construct removes the paradox: https://conversational-leadership.net/tolerance-is-a-social-contract/
(note: I just skimmed that version, there might be better versions of this argument out there)
Thank you, good read!
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Seems to get some mixed reviews, lots of people on goodreads sayng it writes off the concept of trauma?
wrote last edited by [email protected]I also read it. Saying it writes it off might be a slight overstatement, but it doesn't accept trauma as valid justification for not doing something you are otherwise capable of. It generally treats it as a comforting lie to avoid recognizing something one doesn't want to confront about oneself.
That is its most controversial claim, and with our modern understanding of things like PTSD it would certainly need to at least yield a lot of ground. I also remember it advised parents to not really praise or scold children in a way that passed authoritative judgement. Even as someone who thinks parents should generally trust kids to make their own choices more, that seems hard in practice and not likely to benefit a child depending on feedback from parents.
But I would still recommend it with the caveat that you are free to disagree with any of its claims. It's overall very empowering and pushes the idea that someone's worth is not dependent on the evaluation of others. It tries to convince the reader that they are capable of changing things they don't like about themself rather than being deterministically fated to it like Freud might have you believe. With the amount of hopelessness people face now, it's probably more relevant today than during Adler's life.
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What books or articles have you read recently that fundamentally shifted the way you think about the world, and how you interact with it (work, social, play, whatever)?
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I love Graeber. His book with David Wengrow, the Dawn of Everything, was definitely a worldviews shifter for me. Amazing book.
I didn't read Bullshit Jobs, but it read an article he wrote along with it, that was great.
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I also read it. Saying it writes it off might be a slight overstatement, but it doesn't accept trauma as valid justification for not doing something you are otherwise capable of. It generally treats it as a comforting lie to avoid recognizing something one doesn't want to confront about oneself.
That is its most controversial claim, and with our modern understanding of things like PTSD it would certainly need to at least yield a lot of ground. I also remember it advised parents to not really praise or scold children in a way that passed authoritative judgement. Even as someone who thinks parents should generally trust kids to make their own choices more, that seems hard in practice and not likely to benefit a child depending on feedback from parents.
But I would still recommend it with the caveat that you are free to disagree with any of its claims. It's overall very empowering and pushes the idea that someone's worth is not dependent on the evaluation of others. It tries to convince the reader that they are capable of changing things they don't like about themself rather than being deterministically fated to it like Freud might have you believe. With the amount of hopelessness people face now, it's probably more relevant today than during Adler's life.
Thanks for the insight! I might give it a crack.
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I love Graeber. His book with David Wengrow, the Dawn of Everything, was definitely a worldviews shifter for me. Amazing book.
I didn't read Bullshit Jobs, but it read an article he wrote along with it, that was great.
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Ah, yeah, that's right, it was the Strike magazine article
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Seems to get some mixed reviews, lots of people on goodreads sayng it writes off the concept of trauma?
There's something to that, at least with trauma (and it doesn't really explore Trauma). Still, as a philosophical exercise, I found it really compelling. If you end up reading it or listening to the audiobook, I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.
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What's the gist?
That we have been really told that things must be binary and not maybe, like that in quantum physics, where things are all possibilities.
He's known a bit more for satirical conspiracy stuff, so goes that way a bit too
