Review by Booklist Review
Judging by the tenor of our political discourse, writes philosopher Lynch (The Internet of Us, 2016), our answer to the question of how we should believe seems to be: as dogmatically as possible. He draws a distinction between the long history of confidence pervading America's national character and the more recent turn toward moral and intellectual arrogance, typified by the attitude that your side has it all figured out. Though the book is grounded in recent American politics specifically surrounding Donald Trump before and after the 2016 election the author calls on philosophers from a variety of eras and disciplines to support and enrich his arguments, whether John Dewey on open-mindedness in democratic politics, David Hume on the intersection of passion and communication, Michel de Montaigne on the dangers of dogmatism, or Hannah Arendt on the roots of authoritarianism. The book is accessible, admirably concise, clearly written, and richly insightful, both as a cultural diagnosis and as an exemplar of applying philosophical inquiry ancient or otherwise to everyday problems.--Chad Comello Copyright 2019 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Philosopher Lynch (The Internet of Us) delivers a well-intentioned but flawed polemic that attempts, but fails, to resolve the causes of 21st-century American political polarization. Arrogance, he suggests, is the "single attitude most closely associated with our national consciousness," and it leads Americans to view anyone associated with the other party as "dishonest, uninformed, and downright immoral." This problem is amplified, he writes, by cognitive biases, the fear of ignorance and desire to have confidence, the "preference-tracking structure of our digital platforms" that allows users to filter out facts that would challenge their convictions, and bad-faith news reporting. He takes both conservatives and liberals to task, though the case for liberals' arrogance offers much sparser and more anecdotal evidence (a conversation at a party) than the one on conservatives (which analyzes, for example, persistent misunderstandings of #BlackLivesMatter and Colin Kaepernick's kneeling). For Lynch, democratic society requires that all have an intellectually humble attitude and pursue truth as a universal good, but he doesn't clarify what, specifically, would result from the widespread adoption of this attitude, and the book's end descends into an obscure, abstract meditation on the nature of truth. This plea for civic, civil deliberation fails to distinguish itself from the glut of similarly impassioned, similarly vague Trump-era political philosophy books. (Aug.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A philosophy professor tackles our society's increasingly arrogant embrace of convictions that are often misguided and not reasonably supported.In this relevant new book, Lynch (Director, Humanities Institute/Univ. of Connecticut: The Internet of Us: Knowing More and Understanding Less in the Age of Big Data, 2016, etc.) expands on the issue he addressed previously: how our reasoning skills are being undermined by the vast yet unprocessed amount of information found on the internet. He shows how the internet and social media are damaging our ability to process facts, particularly in relation to politics, instilling rigid views that often quickly escalate into an unwavering rejection of those who may have alternate views. Ultimately, we come to believe we can no longer learn from one another. As an example of how social media can stir up outragerather than reasonable thinkingLynch considers Facebook's response emoticons to news events or claims of fact and suggests a more useful commenting structure: "justified by the evidence," "not justified by the evidence," and "need more information." The author readily supports his argument by referencing philosophical ideas culled from the works of Montaigne, Bertrand Russell, Hannah Arendt, and Socrates. Lynch ultimately remains objective in assessing arguments on both sides of the political landscape, asserting that the right and left can each learn from the other. His bottom-line resolution is to accept with humility what we do know. "To strive after truth and humility means that we must always be ready to consider new evidence and new experiences, and that we cannot rest content in our convictions," he writes. "Part of being intellectually humble is treating truth, not just agreement, as a goal of inquiry." Though the author's argument is cogent, his academic approach, while not overly opaque, may miss a wider audience of readerson all areas of the political spectrumwho could most benefit from his message.Lynch offers an insightful, timely message that may be too intellectually articulated to appeal to those it could best serve. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
