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Israr Khan
4 Books That Explain Why The World Seems So Fucked
These books will help you understand the ways of the world.
Ours is the age of contradiction and chaos. We live in an age that claims to be working for the well-being of the people, yet people are more depressed than ever before. We are at the juncture of a time where there is liberal democracy and freedom, yet everyone feels chained and suffocated.
We are at the age that champions peace and prosperity, but everyone seems at war with financial insecurities. We have developed institutions that fetter despots and tyrants’ uncivil and evil desires and bend them to live in peace and harmony. Yet, the whole world is at war — directly or indirectly.
One wonders about the promises and realities of the modern age. We are standing almost on the verge of a full-blown third world war, yet we are hopeful that we are civilized enough to take up arms.
Despite access to knowledge, technology, and advanced tool of modernity that help us understand ourselves and our neighbors better, we know little of each.
We have billionaires who gave billions to charities, yet the poor are getting poorer every day.
We elect people to the legislatures through our consent or change our consent for powerful prospective candidates. We don’t know what we are doing.
With every argument presented for clarity, we get more confused and think the whole world seems fucked up by its contradictions and chaos.
We are living in a strange world.
If you think the same way as described above, read the following four books to understand what’s happening in the world.
1. The Coddling of the American Mind: by Jonathan Haidt and Gregory Lukianoff
One must think that despite a safe environment, access to technologies, freedom of speech, good research, and wise professors at colleges and universities, students are leading a fragile life wrought by depression and anxiety.
This is because we are told to accept Three Great Untruths, explains Jonathan Haidt and Gregory Lukianoff. On campuses, our minds are shaped by these three terrible ideas that are overwhelmingly present in American education.
I would say they are woven into every education system in the world. These terrible ideas are:
“What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker.”“Always trust your feelings.”“Life is a battle between good people and evil people.”
According to the book’s authors, these three untruths have created a mess in modern students' lives. These ideas have watered the microaggressions students of different races, or political affiliations feel for each other.
These ideas are also responsible for identity politics and call-out cultures. They argue that these false ideas shape the personality of young students and usher in a culture of safetyism, isolationism, and extreme individualism that arrest young people’s emotional, social, and intellectual growth.
Children are fettered in chains of social media, political, and intellectual bias. They have lost their independence and are more fragile and sick than ever before.
The quest for comfort has made the kids dull.
In conclusion, the authors suggest that universities can change this scenario by focusing on more inclusive ideas where everyone is welcomed and valued no matter what his affiliation is.
Best quote from the book
“From time to time in the years to come, I hope you will be treated unfairly so that you will come to know the value of justice. I hope you will suffer betrayal because that will teach you the importance of loyalty. Sorry to say, but I hope you will be lonelyfrom time to time so that you don’t take friends for granted. I wish you bad luck, again, from time to time so that you will be conscious of the role of chance in life and understand that your success is not completely deserved and that the failure of others is not completely deserved either. Andwhen you lose, as you will from time to time, I hope every now andthen, your opponent will gloat over your failure. It is a way for you to understand the importance of sportsmanship. I hope you’ll be ignored, so you know the importance of listening to others, and I hope you will have just enough pain to learn compassion.Whether I wish these things or not, they’regoing to happen.And whether you benefit from them or not will depend upon your ability to see the message in your misfortunes.”
2. The Death of Expertise by Tom Nichols
The Death of Expertise by Tom Nichols perhaps best explains why today’s world seems so messy and directionless. He explains that the problem with today’s world is that everyone has access to everything he wants.
Tom Nichols is not against the democratization of the information people get through access to technology and the internet. Still, his main argument is that this trend has negated the value of expertise in all fields of life.
He sees the rise of the false over-confidence in one’s own ability, self-esteem, and grade inflation as anti-intellectual and anti-expertise. The access to more and more information, rather poorly informed information, has led to the rise of the debate of all voices being equal.
His main focus is that search engines have provided easy access to ill-informed people who think themselves are experts on every issue of the world, leading to more issues and ignorance.
This trend has created a mess in the world, and nobody is ready to consult an expert on issues that confound the world.
He believes that the democratization of information is a blessing, yet it has created an army of ill-informed citizens who denounces expertise.
Best quote from the book
“We are supposed to “agree to disagree,” a phrase now used indiscriminately as little more than a conversational fire extinguisher.And if we insist that not everything is a matter of opinion, that some things are right and others are wrong well, then we’re just being jerks, apparently.”
3. Democracy for Realists by Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels
We think we live in an age marked by liberal democracy where people vote their representatives into the legislature with their consent. Yes, we do it with our own consent, yet that’s not ours too.
Achen and Larry Bartels explain in their book how democracy works in reality. We blame bureaucrats and politicians for all the ills in our countries and think that our countries would have been a lot better if the people were more politically educated and engaged.
We think education would have informed the masses about their rights and interests, which would have helped form a more civilized society.
But unfortunately, despite people thinking of themselves as being educated and well-informed, they are ignorant of the real issues and vote against their collective interests.
The book explains that our loyalties and principles change because our emotions are manipulated, and group identities sway our voting choices.
The book focuses more on the United States, yet every liberal democratic country can see itself through its lenses.
The book suggests that to put things in order, we have to avoid the social media hype on Twitter and Facebook, where an angry mob becomes an active part of the voting campaign.
Instead, we should focus more on the experts to devise policies that are not only good for a section but the public at large.
Best quote from the book
“Well-informed citizens, too, have come in for their share of criticism, since their well-organized ‘ideological’ thinking often turns out to be just a rather mechanicalreflectionof what their favorite group and party leaders have instructed them to think.”
4. Who Owns the Future? by Jaron Lanier
Who Own the Future is yet another great book with a lot of valuable insight into the ongoing chaos and directionlessness in the world.
Jaron Lanier thinks that all the problems in the world are created by access to free information via the internet, where one can get what he wants.
But do you know what you want to know? Or your want of knowledge is manipulated?
His basic idea in the book is that big search engines such as Google collect our personal data for the dissemination of free information and services. He is most critical of the Google translation algorithm, which saves our preferences and sends us information on that guess.
Yet, Google collects our data for free in all these processes and gives it to the big firms that they use for target ads and earn billions of dollars. His main point is that the middle class is debarred from the digital monetary reward while doing all the work — providing data and using the services with ads.
The algorithm’s guess may not be correct, and people end up getting that information that may not be valuable or important. Such trends keep people ill-informed about the core issues, and the valuable information is kept aloof.
Jaron Lanier suggests that to avoid imperiling our personal data and security and get the best of information, insist on paying to get ad-free information. Such a policy would help you get the genuine info, and you will be able to support that artist, writer, or any other creator directly, and you will control what you want to know.
Best quote from the book
“We must learn to see the full picture and not just the treats before our eyes. Our trendy gadgets, such as smartphones and tablets, have given us new access to the world. We regularly communicate with people we would never even have been aware of before the networked age. We can find information about almost anything at any time.But we have learned how much our gadgets and our idealistically motivated digital networks are being used to spy on us by ultrapowerful, remote organizations. We are being dissected more than we dissect.”
Final Takeaways
The modern age has provided us comfort, luxuries, free information, and access to almost anything, but at what cost?
Despite all these things, our consent to voting is digitally manipulated, and a powerful section of society determines what we should think of ourselves and the world at large.
We have gained many valuable things but bartered priceless things in it. We think of ourselves as the free generation who has achieved wonders through modernity, yet we are chained and spied on every time and everywhere.
We have developed big liberal economies that claim riches for everyone, yet everyone is excluded from the bounties we contribute to.
Instead of peace and prosperity, we are at war psychologically and physically with ourselves and others.
However, we can find the lost way amid all the chaos and directionless only if we pay heed to a few things by reassessing them with more reasons and intellect.
The above books can help you look at the world and its problems from a different angle and will change your perspective about them.
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Posted Jul 28, 2022
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