Category: Book review

How frustrated are you? Really, how frustrated are you with the culture, the government, the economy, the church, your world, your career, your life? If you are a lot, you are a candidate for becoming a true believer.

In his classic book The True Believer Eric Hoffer unpacks the dynamics of mass movements–who they attract, the phases they go through, the types of leaders they possess, how different groups react, and how they move forward or fail. His working hypothesis is “that the frustrated predominate among the early adherents of all mass movements and that they usually join of their own accord” (p. xii).

They are so dissatisfied with their present world that they are willing to wreck it for only the possibility of a new future. Their dissatisfaction extends to themselves–and as a result they are ready to give themselves over unconditionally to something greater than they are (their party, their nation, their religion, their race). Two generations after Hoffer’s book, J. D. Vance hints at some of these themes in Hillbilly Elegy.

But leaders and followers grow out of somewhat different soils of frustration. Hoffer observes, “Our frustration is greater when we have much and want more than when we have nothing and want some” (p. 29). Thus leaders of mass movements are often people of modest talent who yearn to join the elite but have been shut out.

When I first read this book fifty years ago, I thought it was a book of history about Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, the French Revolution, the Reformation, the rise of Islam–and so a book about a distant past. On rereading it, the book feels as current as today’s Twitter feed where political and religious true believers so often dominate.

It is hard to categorize this book. Hoffer, a longshoreman by trade, was called a self-educated philosopher but the book is more one of social and political psychology. He is dense, pithy, provocative, and intensely insightful. Each sentence is like an aphorism that could bloom into a book.

Consider one example: “Equality without freedom creates a more stable social pattern than freedom without equality” (p. 33).

Or this: “It is the sacred duty of the true believer to be suspicious. He must be constantly on the lookout for saboteurs, spies and traitors” (p. 125).

The True Believer was one of the most important books of the twentieth century. It deserves to be one of the most important of the twenty-first.

In a world of extremist language on all sides, what saddens me most is Christians who fail to speak with grace, humility, wisdom, and love. In short, who fail to act like Christ. No, actually, what saddens me most is when I fail to.

Alan Jacobs puts his own advice into practice in How to Think. He winsomely walks us through important dynamics regarding how we can and should think and talk when we believe something strongly.

Jacobs highlights, for example, that “when people commend someone for ‘thinking for herself,’ they usually mean ‘ceasing to sound like people I dislike in starting to sound more like people I approve of.'” They forget that we are all influenced by others and by our communities. “Thinking is necessarily, thoroughly, and wonderfully social” (37). And terrifyingly social, because changing our minds can mean losing our friends, our family, or our community.

No one wants to be completely open-minded either. “No one wants to hear anyone say that, while there is certainly general social disapproval of kidnapping, we should keep an open mind on the subject” (126). And no one wants to hear that thinking requires balance.

Sometimes facts or reasons do come to light which should alter our views. We want to have commitment in our convictions along with the humility and honesty to hear different perspectives.

If we can shrink others to less than human or more than evil, then we can absolve ourselves of the need to open our ears and our minds. To listen takes courage. Yet, “working toward truth is one of life’s great adventures” (150). In that lies hope.

Why are Americans so at odds with each other? Why have so many people entrenched themselves in opposing camps, viciously vilifying each other? What has turned us into a nation of Us vs. Them?

Is cable news responsible? Did the Russians do it? Does it go back to Newt Gingrich or the Robert Bork confirmation?

In his book, Them, Senator Ben Sasse has a very unpolitical answer. It’s because, he says, we are lonely. We have fewer friends. We are more disconnected from our communities. So we grasp for a group to feel part of, to identify with. More and more that manifests itself in our political and social identities.

Since World War II single-person households have tripled to 26 percent. Technology has also pushed us into self-reinforcing corners where we just don’t encounter people as people who might have differing views. Other significant factors are at work as well.

Yes, cable news and radio talk showmen and show women have taken advantage of our situation. And yes, the Russians have fanned the flames too with more than 50,000 Russian-linked Twitter accounts fueling outrage by sending automated messages on both sides of issues. But these only feed on a pre-existing condition.

What’s the cure for our illness? The last half of the book offers several worthwhile remedies, from setting tech limits in our personal lives to building into a neighborhood or community to re-educating ourselves on how democracy works and what it stands for.

Sasse regularly says the book is not political in the sense of party politics or hot-button issues. He is right. The book is social and personal. When he does touch on political examples, he is to be commended for being very evenhanded–criticizing and praising as appropriate both right and left, both politicians and journalists, both Republicans and Democrats. Sasse models how we can treat each other as human beings, as fellow Americans who deserve our listening ear and our respect.

The world is better than you think. Really? Really. Consider these–all based on UN statistics:

• Life expectancy has risen worldwide from 31 years in 1800 to 72 years in 2017.
• No country in the world has an average life expectancy of less than 50 years today.
• The percentage of undernourished people has dropped from 28% in 1970 to 11% in 2015.

Continue reading “The Importance of Being Factual”

Freedom of religion seems like it has always been foundational to America. As Brandon O’Brien tells in Demanding Liberty, however, this was long in doubt and has regularly needed defense even since it was enshrined in the Bill of Rights.
Continue reading “An American Story”

The sad reality is that often certain groups of people in society have been silenced or muffled. What they have to say has been sidelined because they came from a certain place, looked a certain way, grew up in a certain culture, did a certain kind of work, or just didn’t have enough money.
Continue reading “Giving Voice”

I was talking with my son Dave, an athletic director at a high school in Tucson, about sports psychology. How do you help athletes move beyond a loss or bad performance? How do you help them focus on the next match or game without being dragged down by the past?

It suddenly occurred to me that this could have parallels to writer’s block. Writers often get stuck. Something went wrong, and now they can’t seem to move forward. So I asked, “What are the best books or resources on the topic?” He suggested Mindset.

Generally I shy away from self-help and especially positive thinking books. This book, however, does not simply say, “Think good thoughts, not bad, and all will be well.” The main proposal is more substantive and based on research that has helped not just athletes but also students, teachers, business people, parents, and writers.

The nub of Carol Dweck’s idea is that we often fall into one of two mindsets. The fixed mindset believes talent, ability, brains are God-given and there is nothing we can do to improve. If we are dumb or uncoordinated, we are just stuck there. If we are brilliant or talented, success should come easy. In either case, there is no point in working hard. And for both, losses can be devastating because it means I must not be talented.

The growth mindset isn’t focused on winning. It focuses on improving, on learning. The outcome is secondary. The result? Setbacks become opportunities to get better. We accept challenges so we can grow rather than avoid them for fear we will fail. Criticism isn’t a judgment on me as a person but ideas that I can learn from. Those with the growth mindset also tend to do better than those with a fixed mindset.

One of the most startling applications of this is that parents should not praise their children for who they are, how smart they are, how talented, how skilled. That instills the fixed mindset which discourages effort.

Rather, parents should praise children for how hard they try. Not for the grade but for what they learned. Not for the win, but for how they improved. In a way, this book offers the exact opposite of the self-esteem movement.

Mindset is a popularly written book with lots and lots of stories. It basically has one idea that it keeps hitting again and again. Whatever research the book is based on is way in the background. Another book on psychology, Thinking, Fast and Slow, is also filled with stories but has dozens of fascinating ideas based on research that is closer to the surface.

In addition, Dweck seems to imply that mindset is context-free. It doesn’t matter what your circumstances, background or social setting are. The growth mindset works all the time everywhere for everyone. I would have liked more than anecdotal evidence on how this paradigm is or could be effective in underresourced communities. She does offer qualifications a few times, saying not everyone can become a Beethoven or a Michael Jordan but that all can improve. Still the breathless enthusiasm of a true believer permeates the book.

What about writer’s block? Dweck’s work can, nonentheless, be helpful in dealing with criticism which can paralyze writers because they see it as a judgment on who they are. “Obviously, I don’t have the talent.”

When they change to the growth mindset, they saw criticism as an opportunity to improve. In essence, they thought, “Teachers and editors are just doing their job to point out errors and weakness. Now I need to do my job by improving my work.” So they did.

Centuries ago Brother Lawrence wrote the spiritual classic The Practice of the Presence of God. There that monk taught us to be aware that God is with us in each moment, even when performing such mundane tasks as working in the kitchen or cleaning a floor. In Liturgy of the Ordinary Tish Warren has provided us with such a classic for our day.

From

waking to brushing teeth to making phone calls to getting into an argument to going to sleep at night, she opens to us how we live each moment in God’s presence. These gifts of repeated patterns or recurring events in our lives offer us the opportunity to see God’s grace in each moment and give thanks for his gifts when life is hard and when it is good.

The

spirit this book creates is wise, warm, encouraging and at the same time very honest. It is neither sugarcoated nor moralistic. We don’t find do’s and don’ts. Rather, in this Christianity Today Book of the Year, we find a winsome invitation to join our day to God’s.

While the book uses the motif of liturgy to frame the book, readers certainly don’t need to come from or be familiar with the liturgical tradition to benefit from this. Instead it provides fresh dimensions for and expands our appreciation of Immanuel, God with us.

Moneyball is the kind of book (as was the movie) that you can love even if you aren’t interested in baseball. It’s a David and Goliath story. It’s story of calcified tradition vs. gritty innovation. It’s a story of rising from the ashes.
Continue reading “A Story Even Those Who Aren’t Baseball Fans Can Enjoy”