Book Review: Dopamine Nation

  

Dopamine Nation is a 2021 book written by Anna Lembke. Dr. Lembke is a psychiatrist and the medical director of Stanford Addiction Medicine.

The book, with its catchy subtitle "Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence", focuses on modern trends of overconsumption, specifically in American society.

To understand the book, we need to put some contemporary social pathologies into context. Princeton economists reported shorter life expectancy among white Americans without a college degree. The morbid findings of midlife mortality among caucasians were mostly attributed to three major causes: substance abuse, alcohol-related liver disease, and suicide. (The term "Death of Despair" was coined by Anne Case and Angus Deaton, and the phenomenon is discussed in their book Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism.)

The book oscillates between patients and personal memories, and scientific rationale backed by some evidence-based material. Most cases are clinical cases of high-end drug abuse or other types of addiction. To tackle the goliath of addiction, it is inevitable to (at least) touch on a few domains beyond the narrow scope of psychiatry. Education, pop culture, sociology, economy, internet, and information technology are the key players in this problem, and accordingly must be addressed as components of any proposed solution.

A part of the psychology of addiction is rooted in education and the current education system. As an example, in Chapter 2 (Running From Pain), the author questions some approaches to modern treatment of children:

"... I worry that we oversanitized or overpathologized childhood, raising our children in the equivalent of a padded cell, with no way to injure themselves but also no means to ready themselves for the world."

Later in the same chapter, the book quotes Neil Postman (American media theorist and cultural critic:

"... Americans no longer talk to each other, they entertain each other. They do not exchange ideas, they exchange images. They do not argue propositions; they argue with good looks, celebrities, and commercials."

These self-deceptive behaviors, norms, or traits divert attention and insulate us from pain. As mentioned earlier, this book is founded on American psychology. The book reports that pain perception is higher among Americans compared to other nations.

An interesting part of the book explains the physiology of pleasure, anticipation, action, reward, and ultimately pain. The brain's reward pathway involves the ventral tegmental area, the nucleus accumbens, and the prefrontal cortex. While dopamine plays the key role in the sensation of pleasure, its role is even more potent in the motivation to get a reward (Wanting over Liking!).

Chapter 3 (The Pleasure-Pain Balance) introduces the concept of dopamine-deficit state: a neurological process that occurs as a result of overconsumption of dopamine substances. This overexposure disturbs the dopamine release as well as the expression of dopamine receptor (D2), bringing about a full reversal from hedonism to anhedonia.

In Part II (Chapter 4 onwards), the book shifts gears towards solutions and management strategies. Chapter 4 introduces four weeks of Dopamine Fasting for starters. The point is that we need to embrace the pain and acknowledge the suffering instead of escaping from it. The critique should target escapism rather than the pain (This section of the book is in accordance with Susan David's Emotional Agility.)

In Chapter 5 (Space, Time, and Meaning), the Self-binding is defined as the method we intentionally and willingly create barriers between ourselves and our drug of choice to mitigate compulsive overconsumption. Later in this chapter, the book criticizes some aspects of current practice where pharmacotherapy alone is applied without understanding the patient and targeting the underlying behaviors. These lopsided approaches have usually proven futile.

As the study by Warren Bickel revealed, the addicted have a different perspective on the future. The compromised abstract thinking and planning lead to shrinking temporal horizons. One consequence of repeated overconsumptive behaviors, which are modulated through reward pathways, is the atrophy of the prefrontal cortex. For the addicted, the concept of "Future" is shrunken to next week, whereas a normal person looks at a more expansive horizon, years ahead. Fixing this perception should be stressed as a key task in any treatment regime.

Further, the applied medical treatment is not impeccable. Chapter 6 (Broken Balance?) underlines some wrong medical modalities in the prescription of psychotropic medications. The new role has been assigned to psychiatrists to replace the missing chemicals in patients' brains to enable them to work normally. This idea has been welcomed by the pharmaceutical companies, doctors, and patient consumers. The trend becomes more alarming when we notice the disparity in the administration of narcotics between lower and higher socioeconomic classes. Americans on federally funded Medicaid are prescribed opioid painkillers at twice the rate of non-Medicaid patients.

In Part III (Pressing on the Pain Side), the book enters a debate about pain-pleasure management, suggesting pressing on the pain side of the equilibrium can lead to a better and more enduring pleasure. The pain here is grossly used as any type of stress induced under control. The book claims repetitive exposure to pain stimuli leads to shorter initial responses and builds an afterresponse of pleasure, which grows over time. As a result of the fight-or-flight mechanism in our neuroendocrinology, pain morphs into hypervigilance and then morphs into a fit of joy. This part of the book is sensitive and subject to misunderstanding, and in my opinion, requires better structure. The idea as the author mentions, is counterintuitive and against dogma in the field. There are references to studies linking stress to increased dopamine release in the brain's reward pathway. Also, the administration of opioid receptor blocker (naloxone) is shown to block the ameliorative effect of repetitive pain stimuli (suggestive of increased endogenous opioid release in response to pain). These concepts may be labelled as hormetic healing. Overall, I agree with the concept of carefully dosed "pain" stimulus as a method to bring back balance to the flawed pleasure-pain equilibrium. Here, the term "pain" warrants careful definition and a precision medicine approach tailored to each individual's psychosomatic profile.

The next chapter (Chapter 8: Radical Honesty) also explores the means to break the cycle of addiction and overconsumption by opting for a Radical Honesty attitude and utilizing Prosocial Shame.

Prosocial shame is the term used in contrast with a second (and morbid) type of shame called "Destructive Shame". The prosocial shame theory is predicated on the idea that shame can be harnessed as a constructive force through "acceptance" of the defect, flaw, or any transgressive behavior. This interaction and constructive behavior result in a sense of belonging and reduced consumption. 

These chapters stress the importance of prosocial shame in the management of addiction and beyond, for example, in parenting. The personal example from Dr. Lembke's family explains that the concept of perfection is a misleading goal to base a family upon. Instead, an open-hearted willingness to work in collaboration to rectify our mistakes is the way to create true intimacy. 

Truthfulness and honesty encourage a mindset called "Sense of Plenty" (opposed to "Sense of Scarcity"), which enhances the delayed gratification pathway.

Maybe a combination of these methods, applying measured pain stimuli, being radically honest, and being willing to work together (as an individual, a family, or a society/nation) can remedy the maladies of today's hypermedicated, overstimulated, pleasure-saturated world.

Book Review: The Book of my Lives

 Be ready for waves and waves of incessant despair, bitter residues of the peaceful past, and tragedies of life, embraced by the author. 

The Book of My Lives is a collection of essays written by Aleksandar Hemon in various journals, collections, and books, spanning from The New Yorker to the South-Eastern European Anthology, between 2000 and 2012. They are amended or revised, and then organized in chronological order for the purpose of publishing this book. The narrative is flawless. Super-delicious, well-written, with a very visceral narrative that makes Hemon an outstanding author. In the stories, Hemon is brutally honest, sometimes self-deprecatory, and sometimes (rightfully) the opposite. The emotions expounded are very relatable as they are developed from some humane conditions of life that many people at least partially experience or are familiar with. 

So, in brief, The Book of My Lives, is a catalogue of handpicked landmarks that somehow transforms the author's life from serene household to a war-torn Bosnia and from there catapulted to the US, and by some mysterious way, the wings of tragedy continuously hover over, following him up to the later stages of his journey that is pictured as a middle-class life in Chicago.

As a collection of melancholic, nostalgic, war-derived literature, this is a solid read, and I actually found each essay gripping. On the other hand, as a whole, a well-rounded read,  giving me insight or an overview of a life trajectory, it does not hit the high bar for me. I sought that string connecting the beads across these experiences. I sought that overarching narrative synthesized from the amalgamation of these periods. I couldn't find one. But what did I find? 

In this book, I found a misplaced person feeling for his homeland and following the tragic Balkan war unfolding by the second and disintegrating his hometown of Sarajevo. He somehow manages to cope and finds his second home in Chicago as her parents move to Ontario. The routes to these destinations are not clearly explained. But the author's initial impressions are pretty lackluster. The book gives a dreadful picture of the city. There is no notion that this "soup" provided a neighborhood that was at least nominally dedicated to his origins in Ukraine. Is this picture of poverty and conspicuous crime all that represents the city of Chicago? Or are there miraculous ways that asylum seekers, refugees, immigrants, and all sorts of honest, hard-working outliers may have a shot at a better life and social status? 

If you are looking for a wholesome life experience, you should find it elsewhere in Hemon's bibliography. Here, the lens is focused on misery. Life is probably there, hidden somewhere beneath all the drama. Those are not pertinent to the narrative of this book. Hence, the focus is on selected snapshots. For example, the experiences of living in terror and poverty under a socialist regime (1970s Yugoslavia) give an excellent baseline to dig in and further explore and compare with the wild dynamism of switching to a life in a liberal democracy. The enlightening effect of these observations is particularly felt by those who have trodden these dim immigration pathways. However, it is beyond the scope of this book. These are independent images of scattered POV. 

Instead, everything is lined up for a tour de force of nostalgia. The constraints of life under socialism are now packaged as a nostalgic past and an afflicted youth. The West is also not that welcoming environment to find peace and solace. It's all the machinery of life, an experiment in dullness and melancholy. Again, through the cracks of these essays, people fall in love, people travel back and forth freely across the globe, children are born, and family bonds are kept alive (despite a difficult exile). But again, the focus is on death, on bereavement, and on tragedy.

As a student of human psychology, the opacity of modern human feelings has always puzzled me. There may be one simple explanation, partly in charge, and that is the nature of happiness. The sense of happiness and contentment is a bottomless pursuit. These life experiences reminded me once again how much we are indebted to our past, if we still acknowledge our independent identity and have not tactlessly assimilated into a faceless so-called new home. 

It's very good to read autobiographies, comprehensive and complete ones. In my opinion, what makes the genre valuable is providing a thorough picture of life, from childhood privileges, the temporal luxury of living in safety and security at some periods, to tragic, brutal, unfair affairs imposed upon us. That is worthwhile to read. Otherwise, the author adapts a scattergun approach, which only captures snapshots of dramatic despair and opts for a melancholic narrative (which undoubtedly suits the public palate). 

In summary, if you want to read the well-rounded narrative of a refugee's life (with all the ebbs and flows) this book is obviously not for you. However, if you want to read a neat collection of masterfully-written collages of hardships and emotional strains inspected through a bitter mid-life retrospective spectacles, you will find this book amusing.

Pedram

10/30/2025

Book Review: Sleet

The book I bought on a cold autumn night is a collection of Stig Dagerman's best short stories. The book is translated by Steven Hartman. While reading these stories for the second time, I had a better chance to step back and look for commonalities, patterns, themes, and, in general, to better understand the author's philosophy. To address this, I'd look at stand-out stories as an independent entity. These stories are written at various time points; therefore, it is reasonable to represent various concerns of the author throughout his life, from desolate childhood, anxious adolescence to the cold facts of adulthood. Here is a brief one-line take on each of the stories:

The Stories:

To Kill a Child:

The inconspicuous nature of the tragedy unfolding before our eyes. The accident is the scene of sacrifice. The victimhood of innocence before the ignorant eyes of the static machinery of the mundane.

In Grandmother's House: 

An immaculate encounter with Death. The absence of a loved one. A beautiful line is from the grandmother, hearing the voice of the grandfather in the form of a grunt and whisper coming from beneath the gravel:

"He says to go inside. He says he's not sleeping, he's just resting. He'll move on in a minute."

The Surprise:

This one deserves its spot as the first of the series. It is truly heartbreaking. A plot slowly progressing to a dim climax in a setting as harsh as a Swedish winter. The notion of poverty, loss, and bereavement, and a crude patriarchy exercising cruelty on a widow and the child. All the sadness gets worse when you, as the reader, see the brutal experience from the innocent POV of a child.

Men of Character:

The story depicts a chauvinistic view across relationships and the environment. A series of mistrust, betrayal, adultery, abrasive manners, and men and women so engaged with their self-interest. However, as the story unfolds, layers of pathological, chauvinistic undertow emerge. This is a story of guilt and sin and an emotional fracture. But mostly it pictures coarse masculine hubris. As the author put it fabulously, this story depicts "men pregnant with their own honor."

The Stockholm Car:

Again, the rural vs urban, the city vs village, the rich and the poor, come together in an unsavory manner. The subtly hidden in each manner and movement of the gentleman from Stockholm. It is one image that is among the most violent pictures in modern literature, without uttering a word, without raising a hand, and with no gun. The simple neglectful behavior is what hurts the kids (and me as the audience) the most.

Where’s My Icelandic Sweater?

Alcoholism and manipulation are the main themes. The storytelling follows a pattern that was later categorized as a stream of consciousness. Herein, however, we are dealing more with unconsciousness than consciousness. Curiously, the protagonist stirs a variety of emotions in me: from anger to pity, and even sometimes I felt sympathy as the man is afflicted with PTSD of his wife's betrayal. This story is as dark as it gets, and curiously, it is the last in this series. 

Major Themes:

In my mind, Dagerman is a genius and these short stories are oeuvres of a writer/journalist whose lens captured the agony of twentieth-century mankind. There is plenty of literary assets that he denied us beyond his published works. The repeated themes are human regret, the entrapment of existence, being sentenced to lose gradually while poorly equipped to cope, and financial destitution:

1. Existential Burden:

"Time does not heal the wounds of a dead child, and it heals very poorly the pain of a mother who forgot to buy sugar and who sent her child across the road to borrow some. And it heals just as poorly the anguish of a once cheerful man who has killed a child."

2. Fragile Foundation of Being:

Again, the story To Kill a Child is the prime picture of this notion, which is palpable in Dagerman's works.

3. Nordic Despair and Cold Family Ties:

Parts of the stories resemble the existential dread in Ingmar Bergman's movies. The Nordic existential despair in the Winter Light movie. The conflict of belief and the utter solitude we endure throughout existence. For example, in the story The Surprise, a family function and a milieu which traditionally evoke warmth and bond, we read a most heartbreaking and harsh, steely hierarchy:

"His grandfather looked up from the paper, and his aunt let the ladle slip from her hand.

"If it ain't the widow," said Hakan's grandfather. "What you got in the bag? Not a present, I'll bet.""

4. Misogyny:

A prime example, as mentioned above, is the brilliant "Men of Honor". Rarely is a story more aptly titled!

5. Poverty and Social Injustice:

And of course, poverty has a ubiquitous presence in the stories, sometimes married to the children's innocent behaviors in a heart-wrenching fashion:

"Like all children with poor mothers, he was ashamed at first and pretended that he didn't know her. He crossed the street with his friends, parted company, and then timidly made his way back. His Mother sensed his anxiety, and she did not take his hand until they were completely alone on the street."

In conclusion, reading Dagerman leaves one with no surprise why he has been labeled as a Swedish Camus. The writings reek of existential philosophy.

Pedram

10/20/2025

Book Review: We Have Never Been Woke

The nascent terminology and concepts are inevitably rough and subject to refinement in the future. That can be regarded as a side-effect of articulating a new theory. "We Have Never Been Woke" is a 2024 book written by sociologist Musa al-Gharbi. The book is a deep dive into the fourth wave of "Awokening" in the US labeled as "Wokeism". The book investigates the origins, formative phases, and the torchbearers of the Woke movement. Furthermore, the book critically looks into how these movements actually managed or cared to connect to their alleged target population. 

Several ideas explained in this book are not necessarily novel or earth-shattering, but the systematic formulation of the pathology underlying the movement is something that makes this book worth your while. The main target of current analyses is a stratum labeled as "symbolic capitalists". These are liberal elites holding managerial or academic authority, and they mostly define their social status under the umbrella concept of progressivism. One major example is the current state of Ivy League institutions, as the major bedrock for the progressive ideology, is very alarming, and Dr. al-Gharbi's narrative regarding these elite universities rings true to my ears. 

The truth is, Woke slogans, good or bad, were merely applied as ploys for symbolic capitalists to gain more control and boost their authority. That is the canonical point that makes the whole read more alarming. The beneficiaries of the current Awokening are not the minoritized or marginalized sects. But the subgroup of influencers with Democratic-leaning political orientation and hailing from higher socio-economic percentiles, who, in line with their power-craving modus operandi, want to exploit Woke language as an extra muscle for their political grip on power. Social justice, diversity, equality, and inclusion are mere code-names in the game, as abstract as it gets. In reality, in the political scene, they are fierce observers of the current framework at best and sympathizers of social injustice at worst. This unfortunate situation will inevitably deepen the gap between political parties and activists with a disenfranchised social base. 

"We Have Never Been Woke" is a good book; it is a nascent formulation of a decade-long social issue.

Pedram

10/13/2025

Book Review: Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now

 Do you feel you have been shafted by high-tech social media companies? The book is written by computer scientist Jaron Lanier. He is one of the founding fathers of virtual reality and a Silicon Valley resident. So, these words and his viewpoint are more thought-provoking. 

In the preface, he uses the example of cats as a species with a behavioral pattern we should aspire to in our online lives. Cats behave independently in an untameable fashion, which makes training techniques futile. This is what we should consider when facing the chaos of the Internet, specifically social media.

First of all, this is not a self-help "Key to Maximum Productivity" type of book. While it is snappy, the book tackles a complex matter that requires multidimensional analysis. In terms of the flow, it is well-written and provides some inside knowledge from a reference figure who has lived in Silicon Valley. Actually, Lanier is himself among the founding fathers of the technology.

Briefly, ten arguments are mentioned in this book against the use of social media:

1- Being against your free will:

Through ads, social media platforms attack our privacy and ultimately undermine our free will. 

This argument is closely tied to the second argument, as the compromised personal information is used to modify users' behaviors. These two arguments are fundamental critiques. I found them valid and definitely concerning. However, despite all these hazards, could a dignified approach harness the capabilities of these platforms? The free public platforms have some inherent flaws that expose users to data piracy. The compromised or exploited data has been used for several ominous plots: from elections to marketing purposes. If this trend grows at this pace, the cybersecurity and political manipulation will definitely outweigh all positive social aspects of these platforms. 

2- Being a behavior-modifying tool: 

Herein, Lanier uses the acronym BUMMER for the first time. BUMMER stands for "Behaviors of Users Modified, and Made into an Empire for Rent”. As a constant customer, I found this point very valid. In most extreme stance, Lanier says: 

"the core of the BUMMER machine is not a technology, exactly, but a style of business plan that spews out perverse incentives and corrupts people."

3- Making you into an asshole (Unhealthy relationships): 

There are dangerous behavioral changes such as aggression, arrogance, a fetish for axaggeration which is a cover for inner insecurity. Top social media influencers have reportedly confessed that being too nice to others is a disadvantage in this fierce "competeitive fishbowl" business model. Also, the book describes some herd behaviors that switch from solitary/pack behaviors to group behaviors. The pack setting makes social media users predisposed to thinking and acting in a areactionary fashion; more focused on peers or enemies. Rather, an unaddicted educated mind may opt to act more proactively with more awareness of his/her surrounding environment. 

4- Truth sidelined: 

What if one day you find out that the bulk of the likes, reviews, reposts, and comments (and all other sorts of interactions) are fake interactions from fake followers? This is well well-documented that the platforms are fertile soil for such fugazi entities and ghost cyber ninjas, appearing in times of need (political campaigns, election seasons, hot debates, etc) and disappearing when they are not needed, just to reappear with a handy justification to fool the followers/audience. In my limited personal experience, I have stumbled upon a lot of these accounts, and my wishful thinking gradually tailed off, and I was consigned to the grim machinery behind the social media. Actually, we all came to believe that we share these online ecosystems with gazillions of android entities. The ecosystem is polluted, and the truth is subdued. 

5- Context-less:

Limited time, limited space, and a rush to interact jeopardize several interactions on social media. To make matters worse, interspersed ads add to the fuzziness and make the platforms susceptible to a miscarriage of the simple messages. And when they somehow manage to conduce a message, it is dissociated from its context. 

Here, I have a critique. True, this shortage of time and characters are not helpful. However, for the most part the problem lies in the users' approach and how they want to use the tool. The logic is there, but not satisfying. This argument is rather subjective and does not hold a strong sinew.

6- Being against empathy: 

Seeing other people's views in an abridged version compromises our perception and feeling of a matter or situation. These brief encounters devoid of context are just deluding us about participating in a communal discourse. Hence, we are left with some dubious pretexts as to why fellow citizens did what they did. 

7- Hinders happiness:

This argument is again subjective but stronger than #6. On social platforms, people are ranked based on their statistics revolving around popularity and size of their social circles. This triggers a ceaseless appeal to posession of social contacts no number of "friends/followers" can satisfyingly put an end to this craving. Also, a more serious side effect is that it reduces concepts such as friendship or human interaction to numbers and records. 

8- Undermining economic dignity:

Reliance on the "Gig economy" does not provide stability. A minority of entrepreneurs become extremely wealthy in the mould of the 19th century's "Gilded Age". However, overall risk has been radiated out to ordinary people (customers).  

9- Negative and even nefarious when it comes to politics:

Up to a certain point, social media had a positive impact (for example, online activism against abject poverty). However, after the financial power of the social media companies skyrocketed, it began to negatively impact political decision-making. There are plenty of examples in recent history: the Myanmar Rohingya crisis deterioration which coincided with Facebook's arrival and inundation by waves of unadulterated misinformation. Another example: India and fake posts (on Facebook's WhatsApp) on child abductions, destabilized parts of India (unfounded rumors).

A more recent example is post-Assad Syria, where cyber activities on platforms in the middle of an information void. 

Thedore, the UN reports social media as a massively deadly weapon sue to "shitposts"

10- Corrosive effect on spirituality: 

For BUMMER citizens, virality is equivalent to truth. To trust these platforms, you should give your cognitive power over to that system. You need to trust the wisdom of BUMMER and its algorithms. As mentioned in argument #4, the social media platforms have not defined "seeking truth" as their goal.  

Book Review: Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win

Former navy SEALs Jocko Willink and Leif Babin wrote this book inspired by principles of combat to aid personal growth and improve business decisions. The similarities between war zones and daily life challenges are figuratively pictured in literature and movies (and to be perfectly frank it used to appeal to my taste in art/self-improvement genre).  Unsurprisingly, this book (and similar titles) sell so well. But let's get to the crux of the book:

The first-hand narrative of the battle and rules of engagement from the POV of seasoned seals and commanders is interesting and novel. In my opinion, the book is very well-balanced and maneuvers between a military narrative and a business/life lesson narrative. I might have a lot of issues with military functions across the board but I looked at this book purely from an analytical viewpoint, looking at the main subjects such as war, mission, battleground, and enemy as metaphors for daily life challenges. I don't subscribe to war and militaristic mentality, I have consistently and fervently condemned the military solutions globally. Therefore, I felt the book may be pleasantly interpreted as a philosophical lesson from a context that in essence is not pluralistic and progressive.

In brief, the book's flow can be nicely recapped by the titles of eight chapters:

I. Winning the war within: 

II. No bad teams, only bad leaders 

III. Believe

IV. Check the ego

V. Cover and Move

VI. Simple

VII. Prioritize and Execute

VIII. Decentralized command

This is my general overview of the book:

In a nutshell, the leader should take challenges by the scruff of the neck. They should act confidently and responsibly. They should own it (instead of throwing the subordinates under the boss and looking for scapegoats, see Chapter II). This demands stern faith in the project. If this core is well-seated, the sound rippling effect ensues and the whole team/personnel will follow. 

If the goal is the priority, this keeps a lot of toxic egoism in check (Chapter IV), as a wise leader sees the decision-making on the field as not immune to mistakes and off-the-chart over/underestimations. Therefore, the right mentality warrants openness to criticism and think tank-style pooling of ideas. 

Chapters realistically address the limitations of a leader in the real world. Especially in large companies it is impossible to micromanage every minute operation. This demands a leader choose his/her battles wisely and prioritize (Chapter VII). Also, the leader should cultivate a culture of ownership among subordinates and on many occasions, complex missions demand decentralized decision-making. This needs oversight of course but with faith and trust a team can benefit from this distributed leadership (Chapter VIII).

On multiple occasions, the book underlines the similarities between military battlefield and corporate industrial management. The heavy stress on group decisions and shared responsibilities in a collective effort is a key message for those who want to transplant lessons from war zones to their routines in business life.

Extreme Ownership is definitely not a masterpiece. Nevertheless, it is an insightful and pragmatic book with some first-hand stories from the front lines.

Pedram, December 9, 2024

Picture: Jocko Willink

Book Review: Defeating the Dictators: How Democracy Can Prevail in the Age of the Strongman

Timely and in-depth assessment of the political terrain.
The huge positive aspect of this book is the detailed and honest account of success in modern autocracies. There are archetypes of successful non-democratic governance: efficiency, infrastructure, education, modern technology, and a ruthless judicial system weeding out corruption.
However, the book still defends democracy as a well-tested method albeit chaotic and (currently) below-par. The book calls for a revision and re-emphasis on democratic values, recognizing human capital, the value of diversity, and providing scholarship and funding for undergraduate and graduate training, especially in technology.

The Stranger by Albert Camus: An Epitome of Absurdism

I reread this novel for the fourth time after a long hiatus. I remember the previous times it flew seamlessly and I liked the fluent narration with a tang of indifferent air. However, on second thought, I felt there were more glitches in the analytical view of the plot and the protagonist's character. This was especially more curious since the author has the kingpin status in 20th-century existentialism. I found it very paradoxical and inconsistent if you want to take notes in existential terms:

The existentialism philosophy seems to redefine human existence with an emphasis on individual responsibility and excluding the metaphysical approach to human problem. The caricaturesque protagonist in The Stranger is anything but an accountable persona who shows awareness or anxiety of those in existential limbo. In other words, this is not a philosophical indifference distilled through soul-searching and spiritual endeavors. Meursault's stance regarding love, family, faith, death, daily life, job, food, sex, hobbies, and even climate (he loves and eventually misses the Mediterranean climate), all picture a plainly simple mindset devoid of perspective. The plot pictures a series of random spontaneous actions that are devoid of meaning from the protagonist's point of view. That is not the existential disdain following epistemic labor routes. 

Meursault decides to give false testimony in support of a corrupt neighbor, passively accepts a marriage offer, and finally commits a murder in a confused haze with no clear intention. All events in the story are lined up with zero conviction. 

In flashbacks and in his mother's words, Meausault is described as a child/adolescent who was able to create happiness for himself, so he is not unhappy. He suffers from an existential anomy but a lazy type of anomy. Philosophy, ethics, faith, social or individual issues are not of interest to him as far as we learn. He is not bound to the truth as well. So it's basically downright flattened spirit as far as character study goes.  

When questioned about his motives for killing the victim, he seriously mentions "the heat/the sun" caused him toward this crime. This is a masterpiece in absurdism but a preload to the existentialism line of thought, Camus pursues in the successive work "The Myth of Sisyphus". The Stranger as a stand-alone work, is a short story of a lost soul in a confused chorea of meaningless actions.  Hard to say it is anything but a sad portrait of confused pointless state of affairs in human life, or at least this is what the author wants to say.

Book summary: Factfulness

Factfulness addresses ten cognitive biases that can affect and compromise our logical faculty. The book is the work of Hans Rosling, a physician/epidemiologist, and expectedly provides a data-driven POV. However, a knack for storytelling makes Hans Rosling's work more fluid and accessible. Herein I briefly summarize the crux of these ten "instincts":

1- Gap instinct:

A tendency to divide things, and ideas, into two distinct groups with sharp contrast: for example, a word divided into super-rich and extremely poor, stuck in poverty. This is false and data support an income distribution with the majority in the middle-range.

2- Negativity instinct:

A tendency to emphasize the negative aspect of each event, experience, etc. 

3- Single instinct:

A cognitive bias can be described as a simplified approach to a complex problem. When someone tries to analyze a multifaceted problem by studying a single parameter. 

4- Fear instinct:

Paying more attention to frightening things. This dominance overrides rational decision-making. The antidote is rational analysis and problem-solving to understand risks and opportunities. 

5- Size instinct:

A cognitive bias that associates the importance or significance of a phenomenon with its size.

6- Generalization instinct:

The inclination for dividing the subjects into two categories. The underlying cause is our preference for simplicity and efficiency in analyzing complex matters. 

7- Destiny instinct:

A cognitive bias that leads the individual to believe the outcomes are predetermined and decided by fate and are totally out of one's control. This can predictably be a huge obstacle to becoming responsible and proactive in tackling life matters.

8- Single-perspective instinct:

The tendency to observe and appreciate a problem from a single viewpoint. This approach may limit our ability to see the big picture and deprive us of reaching out and using others' expertise. 

9- Blame instinct:

The Blame Instinct is a cognitive bias that leads us to assign blame or responsibility for a situation or problem to a single individual or group. This instinct can be seen in various aspects of our lives, from our personal relationships to our professional and political spheres. 

10- Urgency instinct:

This cognitive bias forces us to act immediately in response to a challenge, even when unnecessary. This cognitive blind spot has deep roots in our evolutionary history. Our ancestors acquired a predilection to react swiftly on the face of potential threats. This bias does not translate to a well-rounded logical method in problem-solving in the human race now.

Pedram July 2024

Image from gapminder.org

The Monarchy of Fear

   Fear was the driving force behind Donald Trump's rise to power. This is a take on the 2016 elections that shook many pundits, commentators, philosophers, and casual observers. A body of publications attempted to analyze this choice and focused on specific demographic and social classes supporting Trump in stronghold states for Republicans. However, Nussbaum applies another approach that cuts deeper into the matter by investigating the cause and effect behind this election. This is a philosophical approach to the pertinent subject with heavy connections with social psychology. The toxic brew of misogyny, envy, and fearful anger threatens democracy and its related values. 

   The major hurdle in this philosopher's job is to recognize the unruly emotions and bring them into the fold. The book studies the interconnected emotions of anger, envy, hatred, disgust, sexism, and misogyny and their ramifications on current social affairs in the US. The book describes globalization as one factor bringing about a sense of helplessness and marginalization to a group of citizens. This negative feeling of abandonment eventually transforms into resentment and blame. 

   One aspect of this book is the idea of us "human beings" as a species being vulnerable in our existential terrain, which causes fear as an inherent emotion. If left unattended, this primal feeling can develop into a corrosive agent with monarchial traits controlling various domains of our behavior. Society tends to scapegoat those who are unpopular. In her own words "monarchs feed on fear" "Fearful people run for protection and care, they turn to strong absolute rulers, ... in democracy by contrast we must look one another in the eye, as equals". This horizontal trust is the firm foundation of democracy.

   Amidst disturbing news and divisive rhetoric readily heard and widespread rapidly, reading "Monarchy of Fear" provides a soothing perspective, a timely respite in an onslaught of tribalism and hateful polarization. The ideas of building secluded empires, and hostile policies toward outsiders are alarmingly gaining traction. These may be symptoms of a world marching to a different beat than what Nussbaum describes as our healthy social construct. A lot of the "us versus them" mentality has been propagated by those claiming to be progressive and abiding by human rights. A large portion of stigma is generated by apathy and lack of feeling of any association. 

   Aligned with the unwavering idealism in the book, the proposed solutions look unfashionable and far-fetched: an obligatory three-year service for the American youth and integration of the public school system.  

   Now, at the cusp of a new Cold War era, this anthology on fear is relevant more than ever. The omnipresent vibe of hope and optimism is felt throughout the book with the author vigilantly addressing the issue but not consigning to the doom-and-gloom siege mentality ruled by fear. Quite the opposite, she manages to stay balanced and fair-minded.