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4.22 AVERAGE
4.22 AVERAGE
Overall this is a good book and worth the read, keep an open mind and discover for yourself.
Hari's premise in Lost Connections is important and valid-- we've been fooled by Big Pharma and its billion dollar antidepressant industry, and the way that we live in our disconnected societies today reveals much more about the causes of depression than our brain chemistry does. Our society does a poor job of telling us what we need-- it focuses on materialistic values. Rather than more "stuff," we need a sense of community built through our jobs, our neighborhoods, our churches, etc. The metaphor Hari uses about nausea from his experience in Vietnam throughout the book is extremely fitting-- our feelings of emotional pain are a symptom that reveals something has gone wrong in our lives and society.
There were two main issues I had with the book that are due to the differences in beliefs I have with the author. Therefore, I couldn't agree with him on many of the solutions he lays out. The first disagreement is related to religion. For one, he references a couple of studies that assume the evolutionary theory as fact. Sorry, Hari, but I did not descend from apes. As a believer, it was also hard to see Christ taken out of the equation, or even the importance of spirituality (of all walks of faith), seeing as how that is the source of joy for so many of us. He refers to "spiritual imbalances," but spirituality is not addressed as any of his solutions-- the closest he comes is a chapter on meditation and LSD to reach one's subconscious. I also thought it ironic that at the end of the book, Hari, an atheist, writes, "We have lost faith in the idea of anything bigger or more meaningful than the individual." Well. Duh.My second issue relates to Hari's promotion of socialism, particularly in the second to last chapter (universal income as a 21st century antidepressant?! Ack!). His belief is that it is the government's role to solve all of society's ills rather than the individuals and the communities in which they live to choose their value systems. We should work to reject materialism and embrace connection with one another (and help others to do so); we don't need laws requiring that to happen.
Most of my take-aways from this book relate to how our connections to one another have crumbled and how that can increase depression, but I would like to read more on solutions to this societal issue from a different political standpoint.