[2] Ecological Intelligence: Daniel Goleman - 100 pages - Blurb

Oh what a great joy it is to come to a book like this after suffering the last one. Daniel Goleman's Ecological Intelligence is so far a peek into the future of our economic decision making and what it could mean for the sustainability and resilience of the planet. It reads easy. Goleman shows an ability to take complicated swaths of data, not arduously depicted, and boil it down into goals that align with human habits.

Certain vocab words get focused on consistently. One is the idea of radical transparency. One day it won't be possible for your favorite brand to say one thing and be doing another. What is the impact of the "green" things you buy? Is it enough to say that certain chemicals weren't used or that X% less was consumed in the making of a product? Goleman shows that this is a resounding NO and often a distraction. You may have already know this, but Goleman echoes the ideas Donella Meadows in expanding our awareness to how the overall ecological system works.

Take a cotton shirt. Not only is the cotton sprayed with pesticides, that run off and end up in soil and water, it is also a water intensive crop. The dyes used are tied to increases in leukemia in plant workers who use them. The soil can take 5 years before earthworms return. The toxins released when you throw the shirt out are still semi-barely understood.

This is an awareness book. The ideas are too important and they speak to the kind of invigorating radical change that make the world feel less suffocating and complacent. It beats into the idea that what you don't know matters. You're connected, and decision making needs to come from the bottom up. Goleman shows how this can be done without pretending humans are going to change without appealing to their basic tendencies.

Also, in line with the kind of data engine I hope to work on or build, I learned of GoodGuide. A labeling and food information app that draws from hundreds of databases to see how your choices stack up against others. Not just simple comparisons; it takes the idea of the entire process, from how the product is manufactured to what happens to it in a landfill, and the vehicles used to move it along, and boils it down into a rating.

My only slight tick comes from the refrain. The point is to become more informed and primed to understand the inter-connectivity. This often get's stated over and over in slightly different ways. Not the worst, but I get it.

[1] Things That Matter: Charles Krauthammer - I Tried

I mean, I did evaluate the first 100 pages...

When the book switched to talking about politics, I very quickly realized why this man is a talking head on Fox. When you lead with an article with an over-played deliberate misquoting and distortion of what the President said, and then proceed to argue on behalf of how poorly he defended or advocated for his mis-speech, I lose all patience for you.

It's not helped that overwhelmingly the topics he addressed just felt petty. It wasn't an exploration of history. It wasn't an understanding of science. In fact, he even essentially told readers that Stephen Hawking's "A Short History of Time" was far too complicated and you shouldn't try tackling it! I got another 20 pages past the original 100 before I just broke off. This is my punishment for giving the other "side" a shot.

[1] Things That Matter: Charles Krauthammer - 100 Pages - Blurb

Things That Matter feels like a smart-enough guy talking with grandpa's matter-of-fact attitude. While Krauthammer shows early on he's not shy of hundred dollar words, he uses them in service to his point like grandpa might blame "the blacks" when the nuance and depth involved with "gentrification" may take a longer discussion he's not really trying to have. This isn't to say that he doesn't engage with interesting subject matter, but you feel hesitant in delving into his proclamations when he wants to sum them up in such declarative confidence.

For example, he has a piece called "The Central Axiom of Partisan Politics" you'll find it very quickly seeks to make characterizations of what liberals and conservatives think of each other. "Liberals suffer incurably from naivete, the stupidity of the good heart" he writes. Then to go on and chide the New York Times for wondering why crime keeps falling but prisons keep filling. His matter-of-fact insight: if you lock up the criminals, of course you're going to see a decline in crime. This isn't his investigation of private prisons or the reasons people are getting incarcerated. Just a "duh, New York Times" statement that's hardly defensible with just a touch a context and understanding for what the article was probably speaking to.

It's the same article where he sites a poll asking white men if they're angry. 3/4 said no. So, take their word for it?

Krauthammer does a number of profile pieces. It seems he habitually wants to draw bigger implications from a mini-exploration of a character, while trying to criticize the "liberal" idea that we're all fundamentally after the same things. He's got "life lessons we can all appreciate" without a fundamental understanding for why we should think we have the capacity to do so, apparently. You often can't tell if he appreciates an opponent's argument or where it came from, more than he wants to attack it on it's face.

Take his criticism of breeding the border collie for looks instead of brains. He wonders why we have to destroy this too "in a world of rising crime and falling standards" (1994). Does this not ring a little "save the whales?" I appreciate collies as much as the next former owner, but what do they really have to do with why the cities are failing and what are these standards precisely that you think have fallen?

He further uses take-it-for-granted language when criticizing a democrat for declaring there are corporate malefactors who have more to gain by our ongoing war in Iraq. One thinks Naomi Klein would be reeling.

It's symptomatic of his very "just what's on the surface" kind of take. Life sort of makes sense in a way that, when someone else needs a manual, they're missing out or making a caricature of themselves. I submit the line, "This project for the inculcation of proper human feelings through behavioral technique is either sinister or idiotic." This is a man who was a psychiatrist with a pithy regard for how people modify their behavior? He goes on to equate sensitivity training to Communist China breaking a person's conception of "individual."

It's not all "bad." Having recently criticized art myself, I found his take on the posh creatives hypocrisy over an exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum dead on. I felt the entitlement and classism at war and could agree with the idea of not subsidizing "willful, offensive banality." I tend to agree about most things made out of different sized dicks.

He easily damns parents who sought "natural childbirth," who upon the child's death after complications, the midwife was put on trial. He reserves his sympathy for the child and would indite the parents. At the same time, I get the feeling he'd be the guy simply saying "think of the victim" in a discussion about the death penalty when all the messy facts about what the death penalty incites and involves might make him less sure of himself.

It only gets worse, unfortunately.

Another Beginning: Purpose And Style

If I can't get paid to do book reports, I might as well do them for free, right?

I come to the table as a "learner." I'm considerably less concerned about the topic in particular, than I am with how it's presented and if it can be discussed in a productive way.

Some books are really good at throwing out a ton of facts and figures that are well-researched, independently backed, and useful if you're working with them, but to the average person never going to be remembered nor applied. Others seem to find this insatiable need to fill in every detail of a particular subject's background down to the 5 colors of a particular leaf they stepped on as a child. Neither are going to help if we're drunk on the back porch at a party seeking middle ground.

To borrow from Ralph Nader, I want to be a "professional citizen." I don't need to be an expert on a particular topic to be worried about how it's discussed, yet I will hopefully express my perspective in a way that is accessible without pretending I'm on a crusade to dish out arbitrary or intellectual smack-downs.

I want to stress, I'm after the how more often than the what. I can correct or criticize factual errors and claims, and that will inevitably happen, but in a world with endless streams of information, maybe we don't all have to read the book to get the gist. And, hopefully, I'll be able to offer a way to reflect and engage with information that makes it less overbearing and useful in your daily discourse.

Depending on the book, I may write overviews once I'm finished or blurbs throughout. I'll try to have an organization or labeling system if I need to keep coming back to a particular work. A collection of essays, for example, can sometimes be hard to sum up given the range of topics they cover. I generally stick to non-fiction as well. Do you really need an essay on "omg omg omg I want to blow Neil Gaiman!?" Probably not.

I can see me using this as a place to keep me honest. I want the world of information engaged with. I want to know what it takes to form the most effective voice. How better than the digestion and reflection on the voices of others?