Scan barcode
miguelf's review
3.0
Meghan Daum recently appeared on the Sam Harris podcast (Dec, 2019) to promote this book and she definitely held her own against Sam’s regularly scheduled criticisms. Unfortunately, the book itself didn’t come across nearly as well as she did on the program. Daum is a self-described personal essayist, and this touches on many of the current cultural hotspots (cancel culture, 4th wave feminism, me-too, current right/left alignment) without satisfactorily addressing any of them in enough depth; but hey, if you enjoy hot takes on these issues then this might be the right book for you. The books itself is not lengthy and reads like an overlong Slate article which isn't giving it very high praise. Irritatingly, she describes her spiral down the rabbit hole with her obsession with “free-speech YouTube” (her term for the more popular IDW), which features prominently such intellectual “luminaries” such as Jordan Peterson, and yes even Sam Harris so it’s not at all surprising that she wound up on his program. She seems to have a good to great book about one of the topics she covers here and if she could go into any one subject in depth she just might be able to deliver it in the future.
More...