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13 reviews for:
Gorilla Mindset: How to Control Your Thoughts and Emotions to Live Life on Your Terms
Mike Cernovich
2.9 AVERAGE
13 reviews for:
Gorilla Mindset: How to Control Your Thoughts and Emotions to Live Life on Your Terms
Mike Cernovich
2.9 AVERAGE
Brute Mindset: Generic Pop Psychology for the Apocryphal "Real Man"
Cernovich wrote this book for men who haven’t read many general purpose self-help books, wouldn’t read anything feminine (or at most would denounce it for childish reasons), and are fed up with liberal elites and their PC culture. He self-published the book and it shows. This was one of the worst books I’ve ever read.
An aside about my own bias: I was 99% sure I wouldn’t like this book based on the title, backcover blurbs, and self-published, manly-man aesthetic. I received this as a gift and so felt somewhat obligated to take a look; then I got sucked in by appalled curiosity and ended up speed-reading the whole thing. I actually do think there’s a place for the project of describing and redeeming the changing role of men in contemporary Western society, but it definitely needs a better proponent. So while lack of personal interest and resonance is one reason for the poor rating, another is an objective criticism of poor content and style, as you’ll see below.
Cernovich is self-aware enough to recognize that many will disagree with his system—his truth won’t be your truth (157). He also recognizes that he is prone to black and white thinking. However, he doesn’t use awareness of his biases to make his tone more readable or claims more defensible. He is dogmatically and unwisely unapologetic (157). He doesn't take criticism well.
For example, there’s apparently no such thing as credible accusations of selfishness: “People who accuse you of being selfish are twice as selfish as they claim you are” (77). This is an incredibly stupid defense mechanism that should have never left the playground. It basically means that you can never call people out for acting like selfish assholes and not thinking about how their actions affect others.
This lack of consideration for the other side's perspective and criticisms leads to page after page of attacks against straw-men and cliches, uncharitable and unrealistic claims that “no one tells you the truth” about said cliches (61), and answers via his watered-down collage of half-truths gleaned from his own experience and selective use of pop psych:
• He acts as if personal responsibility “goes against what we’ve all been taught” (9). I grew up in rural America where personal responsibility is a central tenet, so this claim makes no sense to me.
• He claims “no other ’self-help’ book has been targeted towards men like you” (16)
• “Somewhere along the way we were taught that money is evil” (141). Who actually says this other than fringe fundamentalist preachers? More to the damning point, this claim go against Cernovich's own condemnation of consumerist culture, which has taught us to find meaning in material things (9)?
I have no patience for this alt-right, reactionary-conservative, snowflake-victim mindset. They like to act as if everyone outside of their team is disingenuous and that liberal elites, corporations, and big Gov have completely obliterated all semblance of traditional social roles and values, all while commanding millions of followers and winning elections at the highest levels of government. They support the free market, free speech, and avarice up and until powerful actors in the market do things they dislike. See Roger Scruton, Robby P. George, or Andrew Sullivan for principled, defensible conservatism.
Even outside of value debates, Cernovich’s arguments are poor: Cernovich harps on other books and Wikipedia definitions for not sufficiently explaining concepts, but he does this same thing throughout Gorilla Mindset. Most egregiously, there’s only a half-page explanation of what the ‘gorilla' stands for in “gorilla mindset” (14). The explanation mainly regurgitates generic concern with aligning and body and mind. There’s no real connection to gorillas, except that they are great apes like us. But of course, Bonobos, that loving, feminine, matriarchal species is also among the great apes. Along with Chimpanzees, they are the closest living relatives to us, ahead of gorillas. And of course gorillas and other apes have no significant precognitive control, so there’s basically no analogous support for the use of gorillas in the book’s talk of mindfulness, self-talk, communication strategies, etc. As if that wasn’t enough, Cernovich goes off the deep end by saying that “the third eye in the gorilla recognizes we are great apes who seek enlightenment” (14). Wtf?
He has the gall to prescribe “a more active approach. . . to become fully mindful” instead of the well-founded meditation practices of Buddhist masters and researcher psychologists which he incorrectly describes as only “encourag[ing] you stop thought” (44, sic). Many forms of meditation foster certain kinds of thoughts or are framed in terms of allowing thoughts, but not attaching to them.
His criticism of Wikipedia is also unfounded. Definitions are meant to sum up an idea, Cernovich doesn’t offer anything more concise than these definitions and his exposition is more idiosyncratic and jumbled that the corresponding Wikipedia articles.
While Cernovich is mostly regurgitating standard advice found throughout pop psychology and self help books, he at least recognizes this fact and makes occasional references to research (the rest of the time he just says things like “countless studies have proven [x]” without any references (80)).
But even for the existing references, he improperly appeals to authority and shows his misunderstanding of the research. For example, he says Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of flow is about “going with the flow of life, rather than against it.” But if anything Csikszentmihalyi’s flow is about going against the flow of life which encourages passivity and consumerism in leisure time. Flow is meant to capture the active and difficult engagement with tasks that one finds meaningful where time falls away.
Cernovich's concept for self-talk and exercises for analyzing emotions could be better conveyed through the already established ideas and processes of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) (30).
At one point Cernovich seriously recommends a baby aspirin a day without any qualification (besides the boilerplate, ie meaningless, note at the beginning of the chapter to consult a doctor first) (100).
His assessment and “cure” for anxiety and depression discount aspects of chronic pain, heredity, and existing cheap SSRIs because these don’t go along with his narrative (126).
I could go on but I'm sick of thinking about this book. See this overview of Cernovich's career for even more reason to ignore him as a liminal, grifting edgelord of the morass.
Cernovich wrote this book for men who haven’t read many general purpose self-help books, wouldn’t read anything feminine (or at most would denounce it for childish reasons), and are fed up with liberal elites and their PC culture. He self-published the book and it shows. This was one of the worst books I’ve ever read.
An aside about my own bias: I was 99% sure I wouldn’t like this book based on the title, backcover blurbs, and self-published, manly-man aesthetic. I received this as a gift and so felt somewhat obligated to take a look; then I got sucked in by appalled curiosity and ended up speed-reading the whole thing. I actually do think there’s a place for the project of describing and redeeming the changing role of men in contemporary Western society, but it definitely needs a better proponent. So while lack of personal interest and resonance is one reason for the poor rating, another is an objective criticism of poor content and style, as you’ll see below.
Cernovich is self-aware enough to recognize that many will disagree with his system—his truth won’t be your truth (157). He also recognizes that he is prone to black and white thinking. However, he doesn’t use awareness of his biases to make his tone more readable or claims more defensible. He is dogmatically and unwisely unapologetic (157). He doesn't take criticism well.
For example, there’s apparently no such thing as credible accusations of selfishness: “People who accuse you of being selfish are twice as selfish as they claim you are” (77). This is an incredibly stupid defense mechanism that should have never left the playground. It basically means that you can never call people out for acting like selfish assholes and not thinking about how their actions affect others.
This lack of consideration for the other side's perspective and criticisms leads to page after page of attacks against straw-men and cliches, uncharitable and unrealistic claims that “no one tells you the truth” about said cliches (61), and answers via his watered-down collage of half-truths gleaned from his own experience and selective use of pop psych:
• He acts as if personal responsibility “goes against what we’ve all been taught” (9). I grew up in rural America where personal responsibility is a central tenet, so this claim makes no sense to me.
• He claims “no other ’self-help’ book has been targeted towards men like you” (16)
• “Somewhere along the way we were taught that money is evil” (141). Who actually says this other than fringe fundamentalist preachers? More to the damning point, this claim go against Cernovich's own condemnation of consumerist culture, which has taught us to find meaning in material things (9)?
I have no patience for this alt-right, reactionary-conservative, snowflake-victim mindset. They like to act as if everyone outside of their team is disingenuous and that liberal elites, corporations, and big Gov have completely obliterated all semblance of traditional social roles and values, all while commanding millions of followers and winning elections at the highest levels of government. They support the free market, free speech, and avarice up and until powerful actors in the market do things they dislike. See Roger Scruton, Robby P. George, or Andrew Sullivan for principled, defensible conservatism.
Even outside of value debates, Cernovich’s arguments are poor: Cernovich harps on other books and Wikipedia definitions for not sufficiently explaining concepts, but he does this same thing throughout Gorilla Mindset. Most egregiously, there’s only a half-page explanation of what the ‘gorilla' stands for in “gorilla mindset” (14). The explanation mainly regurgitates generic concern with aligning and body and mind. There’s no real connection to gorillas, except that they are great apes like us. But of course, Bonobos, that loving, feminine, matriarchal species is also among the great apes. Along with Chimpanzees, they are the closest living relatives to us, ahead of gorillas. And of course gorillas and other apes have no significant precognitive control, so there’s basically no analogous support for the use of gorillas in the book’s talk of mindfulness, self-talk, communication strategies, etc. As if that wasn’t enough, Cernovich goes off the deep end by saying that “the third eye in the gorilla recognizes we are great apes who seek enlightenment” (14). Wtf?
He has the gall to prescribe “a more active approach. . . to become fully mindful” instead of the well-founded meditation practices of Buddhist masters and researcher psychologists which he incorrectly describes as only “encourag[ing] you stop thought” (44, sic). Many forms of meditation foster certain kinds of thoughts or are framed in terms of allowing thoughts, but not attaching to them.
His criticism of Wikipedia is also unfounded. Definitions are meant to sum up an idea, Cernovich doesn’t offer anything more concise than these definitions and his exposition is more idiosyncratic and jumbled that the corresponding Wikipedia articles.
While Cernovich is mostly regurgitating standard advice found throughout pop psychology and self help books, he at least recognizes this fact and makes occasional references to research (the rest of the time he just says things like “countless studies have proven [x]” without any references (80)).
But even for the existing references, he improperly appeals to authority and shows his misunderstanding of the research. For example, he says Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of flow is about “going with the flow of life, rather than against it.” But if anything Csikszentmihalyi’s flow is about going against the flow of life which encourages passivity and consumerism in leisure time. Flow is meant to capture the active and difficult engagement with tasks that one finds meaningful where time falls away.
Cernovich's concept for self-talk and exercises for analyzing emotions could be better conveyed through the already established ideas and processes of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) (30).
At one point Cernovich seriously recommends a baby aspirin a day without any qualification (besides the boilerplate, ie meaningless, note at the beginning of the chapter to consult a doctor first) (100).
His assessment and “cure” for anxiety and depression discount aspects of chronic pain, heredity, and existing cheap SSRIs because these don’t go along with his narrative (126).
I could go on but I'm sick of thinking about this book. See this overview of Cernovich's career for even more reason to ignore him as a liminal, grifting edgelord of the morass.
Really didn't get much out of this other than a few of his notes on diet, exercise and taxes, which you can get more reliable and detailed information from professional sources...
He spends the entire first chapter convincing you why you should continue to read his book all the way too the end, saying things like "I know some of this will sound cliche and cheesy, but...." and talking himself up so you can believe his tips since he's soooo accomplished. He even put in some of his positive reader reviews and the numbers of podcast listeners he has, etc. Honestly, it was really conceited and made me want to read the book even less.
But nonetheless, I persisted, only too quickly discover that the entire book has a twinge of male chauvinism to it. "If you follow these steps you will become the man you always wanted to be!" and in his health and fitness sections, he always brought up how certain habits or supplements would help promote your levels of testosterone! I tried to take all of this with a grain of salt, but it was clear he didn't intend on any females reading this book, because God forbid women should try to take control of their lives and be more successful (Don't worry ladies, it's not worth a read anyways).
Those things aside, I can honestly say the "help" in this book was heavily geared towards only a specific type of person. A lot of the advice he gives you is based on his approach of "self talk", which, as an internal and abstract thinker, is not really possible for me since I don't really have an internal voice. He also just takes a lot information backed by "studies" that usually aren't cited and you just need to take his word for... Assuming he got these facts from credible sources, most of his major points are clearly just stolen from somewhere else (more credible probably) and mish-mashed together... so you should just skip this book entirely and go to them. All of the advice in here is just one man's approach that helped him to get to where he wants to be, but it's not very usable for a common crowd. So.. if you're Mike Cernovich this is the perfect approach! But not for most other people.
On a final note, the book was not well written and contained many grammatical errors.
I really don't advise this book
He spends the entire first chapter convincing you why you should continue to read his book all the way too the end, saying things like "I know some of this will sound cliche and cheesy, but...." and talking himself up so you can believe his tips since he's soooo accomplished. He even put in some of his positive reader reviews and the numbers of podcast listeners he has, etc. Honestly, it was really conceited and made me want to read the book even less.
But nonetheless, I persisted, only too quickly discover that the entire book has a twinge of male chauvinism to it. "If you follow these steps you will become the man you always wanted to be!" and in his health and fitness sections, he always brought up how certain habits or supplements would help promote your levels of testosterone! I tried to take all of this with a grain of salt, but it was clear he didn't intend on any females reading this book, because God forbid women should try to take control of their lives and be more successful (Don't worry ladies, it's not worth a read anyways).
Those things aside, I can honestly say the "help" in this book was heavily geared towards only a specific type of person. A lot of the advice he gives you is based on his approach of "self talk", which, as an internal and abstract thinker, is not really possible for me since I don't really have an internal voice. He also just takes a lot information backed by "studies" that usually aren't cited and you just need to take his word for... Assuming he got these facts from credible sources, most of his major points are clearly just stolen from somewhere else (more credible probably) and mish-mashed together... so you should just skip this book entirely and go to them. All of the advice in here is just one man's approach that helped him to get to where he wants to be, but it's not very usable for a common crowd. So.. if you're Mike Cernovich this is the perfect approach! But not for most other people.
On a final note, the book was not well written and contained many grammatical errors.
I really don't advise this book
Like other reviews here, I failed to see anything new or enlightening here outside of a creative title. The book starts off like many self development books trying to sell itself in the first few chapters, by hyping itself up with claims before you get to any real useful information. Finally it starts off, begins with some great info, by stating to write positive affirmations about yourself no matter how wild... Ugh, yeah, that's a new one right?! Then further researching the author, finds he's a Trump supporter which says a bunch right there. Also has a book on juicing, though he has no evidence of his claims. Also appears he was the attorney for that GamersGate scandal discriminating against female game programmers.