The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement by David Brooks (PDF)

Description

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERWith unequaled insight and brio, New York Times columnist David Brooks has long explored and explained the way we live. Now Brooks turns to the building blocks of human flourishing in a multilayered, profoundly illuminating work grounded in everyday life. This is the story of how success happens, told through the lives of one composite American couple, Harold and Erica. Drawing on a wealth of current research from numerous disciplines, Brooks takes Harold and Erica from infancy to old age, illustrating a fundamental new understanding of human nature along the way: The unconscious mind, it turns out, is not a dark, vestigial place, but a creative one, where most of the brain’s work gets done. This is the realm where character is formed and where our most important life decisions are made—the natural habitat of The Social Animal. Brooks reveals the deeply social aspect of our minds and exposes the bias in modern culture that overemphasizes rationalism, individualism, and IQ. He demolishes conventional definitions of success and looks toward a culture based on trust and humility. The Social Animal is a moving intellectual adventure, a story of achievement and a defense of progress. It is an essential book for our time—one that will have broad social impact and will change the way we see ourselves and the world.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐David Brooks makes an impressive case for the role of the unconscious and moral intuition in man’s judgments. Brooks argues that we are not rationalists, in which conscious reason and logic control our decisions, the view of the French Enlightenment. We are largely social, sentimental creatures, the view of the British Enlightenment. Unfortunately, the unconscious and the moral imagination have become the basis for societal decisions that also require reason and logic–critical thought.David Hume, a leader of the British (Scottish) Enlightenment, identified the imagination as the active mental power that fashions a specifically human world within nature. He recognized that the imagination enables man to create connections between the perceived elements of both the physical and the moral world. But Hume also held that man’s actions “were grounded in psychological realities, and hence were not to be disavowed lightly in the name of any specious transcendental value system, abstract metaphysics or utopian visions.”Our college-educated social animals consider that their views are the products of uniquely creative intelligence, intuition, and imagination–and are thus morally superior. But for other than the technical professions (such as natural science, medicine, engineering, and finance), college since the 1960s has inculcated postmodern thinking in its graduates. Postmodern thinking dismisses the “rationalistic” mentality associated with scientific mechanism and materialism, what Theodore Roszak derided as “objective consciousness.” The elite moral imagination reflects the postmodern social construction of reality (or illusion), dismissing the need for evidence.The sustainability ideology now dominant among elites illustrates the results of such thinking. Contrary to Hume, sustainability includes apocalyptic environmentalism, an egalitarian utopian vision, and a Gnostic-like transcendental value system–sustainable development. Edmund Burke called this the use of the “idyllic” imagination rather than the moral imagination. And many elements of sustainability require objective understanding and use of mathematics and assessment of risk, for which, as Brooks notes, the unconscious is unequipped.For matters of public policy, critical thought, not just personal or collective moral intuition, must be an essential element of judgment. In conscious thinking, as William James advised, intuition and logic must operate in partnership; the challenge of the rational mind is to sort and organize the interchange between the two. Moreover, the mind must use quality information and methods stored in memory to properly develop and apply both reason and the moral imagination. Are our elite social animals wholly capable of conducting such critical thinking in combination with their intuition?As first revealed by A Nation at Risk (1983), over decades many elites as well as others in Generations X and Y have received mediocre educations. Such elites lack the hard knowledge, experience, and vocabulary–as well as historical understanding–to fully inform their intuition, imagination, or reason. College graduates, increasingly educated in popular culture, are weakest in reasoning skills such as the ability to infer knowledge that is not explicitly stated and to assess the validity of evidence or the logic of arguments. Many elites are semiliterate, innumerate, and lack the critical thinking skills necessary to overcome the prejudices of human nature (Francis Bacon’s “idols”): availability biases, conspiracy theories, false beliefs, and moral obsessions and crusades often based on fantasy rather than imagination.David Brooks need not be concerned that our elites are unduly rationalistic. For public matters, such as the efficacy of the sustainability ideology, many of those elites–in other than their technical professions–would seem largely unprepared to draw responsible rather than moralistic conclusions. Rather than accepting the unconscious as the basis for their thinking, our elites should examine how critical thought can be applied along with the moral imagination–perhaps by the proper use of objective technical professionals rather than only social animals.

⭐I must be the ideal audience for this book because I found it to be a wonderful mix of great writing, new ideas, and interesting information.The goals of Brooks’ book are “to synthesize [recent scientific] findings into one narrative… to describe how this research influences the way we understand human nature… to draw out the social, political, and moral implications of these findings.”He achieves the goal of aggregating the research admirably. I don’t consider myself well read on brain and cognitive sciences but I read several science blogs and had encountered many of the info-bites he introduces, many of which are extremely recent. A random sampling of research results he mentions:”six-month-old babies can spot the different facial features of different monkeyse, even though, to adults, [the monkeys] all look the same.””Anthropologists tell us that all cultures distinguish colors. When they do, all cultures begin with words for white and black. If the culture adds a word for a third color, it is always red.”Brookes uses a device of narrating the lives of 2 invented people, Erica and Harold. For example, to illustrate ideas on decision making, he introduces Erica’s coworker Raymond whose “knowledge of his own shortcomings was encyclopedic. He knew he had trouble comparing more than two options at a time… so he would build brackets and move from one binary comparison to the next. He knew he liked hearing evidence that confirmed his opinions, so he asked Erica and others to give him the counterevidence first,” etc. After describing a situation within the context of the narrative, Brooks jumps in to elaborate with more information. I feared this tactic would be too forced and would thereby fall on its face but he actually pulls it off! He binds up all the ideas in a cohesive story that has surprisingly sympathetic characters and a completely unexpectedly interesting character-driven plot.Brooks uses his characters’ lives and personalities to illustrate his ideas. One theme that arises is that rational thought is far from the dominant component of human reality: “Unaware of what is going on deep down inside, the conscious mind assigns itself the starring role… people are still blind to the way unconscious affections and aversions shape daily life.” Underestimating the importance of culture in forming the subconscious and thus human behaviors causes the government to misdirect their energies, focusing on “money and guns” rather than community. Brooks argues for a more paternalistic government that shapes culture: “You can pump money into poor areas, but without cultures that foster self-control, you won’t get social mobility… You can establish elections but without responsible citizens, democracy won’t flourish… it was not enough to secure a village; they had to hold it so that people could feel safe, they had to build schools, medical facilites, courts, and irrigation ditches; they had to reconvene town councils… the hardest political activity- warfare- depended on the softest social skills- listening, understanding, and building trust.”Brooks’ characteristic writing style is funny, engaging, and smart, but sometimes sarcastic and intentionally provokative/offensive. Example: “Like most upper- amd upper-middle-class children, these kids are really good at obscure sports. Centuries ago, members of the educated class discovered that they could no longer compete in football, baseball, and basketball, so they stole lacrosse from the American Indians to give them something to dominate.” I’d seen this style of soft science writing before, most recently in a book called

⭐. Brooks manages to keep his punchiness sparse enough that I don’t tire of it but if that style doesn’t appeal to you, you may want to steer clear.At times Brooks writes beautifully, surprising me with his poetic phrasing, so for me this book also holds artistic value. In writing about the human mind, he explores happiness and the meaning of life, pulling from sources ranging from Walt Whitman to Poincare. Describing Harold’s impending death, he writes, “his wife and his nurses served him with a care, patience, and devotion that surpassed all expectation. Their efforts were more dear to him because he knew that he could never repay them… It was hard at first to simply fall backward into their love.”This book is great for someone who’s interested in the human mind and wants an incomplete overview of recent developments in that area. It’s also great for people who are interested in a unique perspective on how human nature relates to society and politics. Keep in mind Brooks is not a scientist- he’s a journalist interested in culture and he uses various studies to inform his view but does not analyze the science. This book does not offer deep analysis of studies, nor does it come close to being exhaustive in its depiction of all the research done in this field.

⭐This is my first review – and I felt compelled to do so following my sense of loss in completing this book. The first two thirds is wonderful, and i had the pleasure of reading one of the best books i have ever read. The author blends the narrative of the lives of two fictional characters, with sociology, psychology, a little bit of history, with some wit, and creates an illuminating, fascinating study and explanation of why we become the people we are. Outstanding stuff.Then somewhere in the last third he seems to lose his way with a rambling shift to political opinion, with little in the way of study to support the contentions made, followed by a depressing conclusion around old age and death. If only he had stopped two thirds through this would have been a truly great book – but definitely still worth reading for that wonderful first two thirds

⭐I bought this after hearing that policy makers were clambering as it gave such insight into “the human condition”, so I was expecting a popular science type book along the lines of Freakonomics, Tipping Point etc. This book was so much more, the narrative of Harold and Erica gave real substance to the facts provided and the arguments made.Every page is crammed full of fascinating facts from the number of physical contacts Brits make compared to South Americans while having coffee to how the brain works. It’s also a kind of a manifesto for the sub-conscious, if we are the sum of our experiences then you could look at the sub-conscious as our soul – deep stuff….I really enjoyed the book and have made a page of facts to use in presentations and another page of books to read from the bibliography!Well worth buying

⭐Its an interesting and controversial book that seems to support the basic assertion that when you have a good family background where opportunity, free thought, conversation and happiness are all around you then you will be even more likely to succeed and those from the blighted ghettos have such a tough time thinking out side of the confines of their upbringing. Is that revolutionary or just a circular arguement

⭐Felt so real when reading the book . I agree with mostly what the author was trying to say .

⭐Clever book to read lots of facts and learnt so much about life

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Free Download The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement in PDF format
The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement PDF Free Download
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The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement PDF Free Download
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