Take a photo of a barcode or cover
toggle_fow's Reviews (1.05k)
The Enneagram & You: Understand Your Personality Type and How It Can Transform Your Relationships
This book is a brief introduction to the Enneagram.
It includes a test to help you find your type, overviews of each of the 9 types, and breakdowns of how each type relates to every other type in work, home, and relationship contexts. That's pretty much the whole book.
I would say the majority of the book is taken up in sections explaining how type two and type five get along at work, how type two and type six get along at work, how type two and type seven-- all the way through the many permutations. This is mildly helpful, but only if you know your friends', coworkers', and relatives' Enneagram numbers. The overall introduction of the system at the beginning is more a definition of terms than anything else.
This book saves you the work of clicking through seventeen web pages to find what you're looking for, but in reality it gives you the same exact information you could find online. If you're looking for anything more in-depth than a quiz and a brief profile, I would avoid paying money for this book and instead look elsewhere.
It includes a test to help you find your type, overviews of each of the 9 types, and breakdowns of how each type relates to every other type in work, home, and relationship contexts. That's pretty much the whole book.
I would say the majority of the book is taken up in sections explaining how type two and type five get along at work, how type two and type six get along at work, how type two and type seven-- all the way through the many permutations. This is mildly helpful, but only if you know your friends', coworkers', and relatives' Enneagram numbers. The overall introduction of the system at the beginning is more a definition of terms than anything else.
This book saves you the work of clicking through seventeen web pages to find what you're looking for, but in reality it gives you the same exact information you could find online. If you're looking for anything more in-depth than a quiz and a brief profile, I would avoid paying money for this book and instead look elsewhere.
The experience of reading this book was fundamentally disturbing, despite its "happy ending," and I'm not sure why. It might have been the author's ethereal symbolism and constantly drawing every tiny, innocuous moment from the past into a divine, supernatural web that had profound secret meanings for her and her son. It really felt, for some reason, like a book I could not trust.
The author loves her son. That comes through clearly. Sometimes she sounds very much like an average Christian mom with her instinctive revulsion from texting acronyms ("yo, ima, city words") to saying "if I were a swearing type of girl" and then sort-of-but-not-really writing down swears. Sometimes she sounds like Joan of Arc, seeing visions and God's messages in dreams. I am not at all surprised that she writes poetry.
I tried to "practice not judging," like she says, but I did not succeed. It is not something I am good at doing, even though I keep trying. I don't understand. I don't think I will ever understand.
The author loves her son. That comes through clearly. Sometimes she sounds very much like an average Christian mom with her instinctive revulsion from texting acronyms ("yo, ima, city words") to saying "if I were a swearing type of girl" and then sort-of-but-not-really writing down swears. Sometimes she sounds like Joan of Arc, seeing visions and God's messages in dreams. I am not at all surprised that she writes poetry.
I tried to "practice not judging," like she says, but I did not succeed. It is not something I am good at doing, even though I keep trying. I don't understand. I don't think I will ever understand.
I picked up this book expecting to hear about the dangers of allowing American cultural values to draw Christians' focus away from the gospel and onto worldly controversies and concerns. Instead, this book is about how Christians need to focus more on worldly concerns.
After another look at the title and blurb, I'm not sure why I thought this was going to be a Christian book, except that I got it from the religion section on NetGalley. I suppose it is, technically, a Christian book, in that it is engaged in a brutal wrestling match with the author's religious upbringing and self-image, mentions the Holy Spirit quite a bit, and does use Biblical stories as metaphors.
However, I would say that it's more of a spiritual book rather than a Christian one. Though certainly very present among Christian communities, the cultural values with which Mayfield is fighting a battle to the death (several of them mentioned in the book title) will be familiar to any American of almost any background.
Her clarion call to lift up the weak, work alongside the marginalized, and weep with the oppressed is religiously indiscriminate, and a widely-recognized moral value among people who don't believe in any higher power at all. Her convictions are outwardly draped in the robes of Jesus, but activists of all stripes should be able to nod along with her zeal to dismantle power structures and radically engage with privilege.
If you can't tell, I'm deeply divided on how to rate this book.
On the one hand, Jesus didn't come to offer salvation to mankind, actually. Apparently, he came to change earthly economics to be more fair!
I don't want to simplify or distort Mayfield's argument in order to create a straw man to criticize, because it is far more complex than what I just said. But. After reading the book I think I can confidently state that she genuinely feels that the central message of Jesus and the Bible in general is that God wants all of us to fix as many earthly problems for as much of humanity as we possibly can. Here is a quote:
Here is another:
I am not sure what kind of pre- or post-Millennial theology Mayfield ascribes to, but it is clear that she believes in some kind of new creation where Jesus reigns on a physical earth renewed and restored to pre-Fall perfected bliss. However, she also seems convicted that true morality for a Christian (or anyone) is singlehandedly prying the fatally flawed and explicitly doomed earth back into pre-Fall bliss through sheer elbow grease, force of will, and moral anguish.
There seems to be a great tension in her heart, and two magnetic poles between which she wobbles in agony. She sees and acknowledges her own savior complex, her own perfectionism, control issues, and struggle with a works-based mentality in the book, yet she still seems trapped by them. She sees her constant sadness and outrage at the unjust state of the world as a virtue, and happiness as a failure, a sign of apathy and moral weakness. Yet she also talks about learning to take joy in every small moment from her multicultural refugee friends, and acknowledges that sorrow is only helpful when you come to the other side of the psalm and reaffirm hope in God's love and goodness.
While Jesus is mentioned a lot in this book, Mayfield recounts a memory of a vision/dream she had while drugged up in the hospital after almost dying: she feasted in heaven around a table with Rohingya refugees and heard a voice implied to be that of God saying, "In heaven, you will feast with those who have suffered the most on earth."
This message, in some ways, is directly from the Bible. In the sermon on the mount. In the first chapter of James. In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. In 1 Corinthians 1, where Paul says, "For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God."
Mayfield sees this with crystal clarity. However, the entire chapter before the part I quoted shows that Paul is talking not about the virtue of being poor, but the virtue of being humble enough to accept the message of Christ crucified when all the highly-esteemed parts of the world we live in see it as foolishness. Where is Jesus in Mayfield's vision? She mentions his name a lot, but where is He? To her, salvation seems to come not through Jesus, but through the moral righteousness of being poor, being oppressed, and being sad. All those looking for a messiah in the time of Jesus were also looking for him to "dismantle oppressive hierarchies," and they were mistaken.
Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me. He said, My kingdom is not of this world.
I can't affirm the soundness in any perspective that doesn't put Jesus at the center of salvation, of life, of everything we do.
However, I said I was conflicted. On the OTHER hand, Mayfield makes a whole lot of very important and convicting points that I think a lot of the American Christian establishment could benefit from taking a long, hard look at. Here is a sampling:
After another look at the title and blurb, I'm not sure why I thought this was going to be a Christian book, except that I got it from the religion section on NetGalley. I suppose it is, technically, a Christian book, in that it is engaged in a brutal wrestling match with the author's religious upbringing and self-image, mentions the Holy Spirit quite a bit, and does use Biblical stories as metaphors.
However, I would say that it's more of a spiritual book rather than a Christian one. Though certainly very present among Christian communities, the cultural values with which Mayfield is fighting a battle to the death (several of them mentioned in the book title) will be familiar to any American of almost any background.
Her clarion call to lift up the weak, work alongside the marginalized, and weep with the oppressed is religiously indiscriminate, and a widely-recognized moral value among people who don't believe in any higher power at all. Her convictions are outwardly draped in the robes of Jesus, but activists of all stripes should be able to nod along with her zeal to dismantle power structures and radically engage with privilege.
If you can't tell, I'm deeply divided on how to rate this book.
On the one hand, Jesus didn't come to offer salvation to mankind, actually. Apparently, he came to change earthly economics to be more fair!
I don't want to simplify or distort Mayfield's argument in order to create a straw man to criticize, because it is far more complex than what I just said. But. After reading the book I think I can confidently state that she genuinely feels that the central message of Jesus and the Bible in general is that God wants all of us to fix as many earthly problems for as much of humanity as we possibly can. Here is a quote:
"What we want is the imagination to believe in heaven coming down to earth, in God's will being done to our neighbors, to shalom being experienced by those who have and are suffering the most. And this will not happen until we change the systems that actually created and uphold the way the United States works, the way America actually is, and until we own it as our own."
Here is another:
"I will never be happy until every single person in the world is safe, happy, and flourishing. I was both pleased and miserable at my core longing. I was pleased because it spoke to a spark of the divine in me because I do believe that this is God's dream for the world. I think this is what shalom is, what the Kingdom of God makes possible. But I was also miserable because until the kingdom comes in full, until we are in the new creation, this isn't a reality."
I am not sure what kind of pre- or post-Millennial theology Mayfield ascribes to, but it is clear that she believes in some kind of new creation where Jesus reigns on a physical earth renewed and restored to pre-Fall perfected bliss. However, she also seems convicted that true morality for a Christian (or anyone) is singlehandedly prying the fatally flawed and explicitly doomed earth back into pre-Fall bliss through sheer elbow grease, force of will, and moral anguish.
There seems to be a great tension in her heart, and two magnetic poles between which she wobbles in agony. She sees and acknowledges her own savior complex, her own perfectionism, control issues, and struggle with a works-based mentality in the book, yet she still seems trapped by them. She sees her constant sadness and outrage at the unjust state of the world as a virtue, and happiness as a failure, a sign of apathy and moral weakness. Yet she also talks about learning to take joy in every small moment from her multicultural refugee friends, and acknowledges that sorrow is only helpful when you come to the other side of the psalm and reaffirm hope in God's love and goodness.
While Jesus is mentioned a lot in this book, Mayfield recounts a memory of a vision/dream she had while drugged up in the hospital after almost dying: she feasted in heaven around a table with Rohingya refugees and heard a voice implied to be that of God saying, "In heaven, you will feast with those who have suffered the most on earth."
This message, in some ways, is directly from the Bible. In the sermon on the mount. In the first chapter of James. In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. In 1 Corinthians 1, where Paul says, "For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God."
Mayfield sees this with crystal clarity. However, the entire chapter before the part I quoted shows that Paul is talking not about the virtue of being poor, but the virtue of being humble enough to accept the message of Christ crucified when all the highly-esteemed parts of the world we live in see it as foolishness. Where is Jesus in Mayfield's vision? She mentions his name a lot, but where is He? To her, salvation seems to come not through Jesus, but through the moral righteousness of being poor, being oppressed, and being sad. All those looking for a messiah in the time of Jesus were also looking for him to "dismantle oppressive hierarchies," and they were mistaken.
Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me. He said, My kingdom is not of this world.
I can't affirm the soundness in any perspective that doesn't put Jesus at the center of salvation, of life, of everything we do.
However, I said I was conflicted. On the OTHER hand, Mayfield makes a whole lot of very important and convicting points that I think a lot of the American Christian establishment could benefit from taking a long, hard look at. Here is a sampling:
• The American virtue of autonomy. This is one that doesn't occur to me as often as some of the others, but was instantly convicting. I know that generally Western and especially American culture puts a lot of space between people. From how far away we stand when talking to people, to how far away our houses are from each other, to how close our family units tend to be, ours is a culture of individual over the group. I grew up knowing the names of one or two of my neighbors at the most and seeing them maybe once every five years during odd situations; this seems normal to me, but the majority of people in the world don't live this way.
Almost all non-Western people, the vast majority of world population, live in communities where neighbors know each other, where different generations of families live in the same house, where your business is everyone's business and everyone's is yours. As someone who loves to use the self-checkout at the grocery store to avoid human interaction as much as possible, this sounds borderline terrifying, but this is the kind of culture to which Jesus came. These are the kind of cultures to which the gospel was first preached.
Christians know we are ambassadors for Christ's message, but what does it say that one of the anecdotes about sharing Christ that I most commonly hear is about a 3-minute passing conversation with a grocery clerk? We are not to be of the world, but how can we share Christ if we are not in the world. Withdrawing further and further from close community relationships can only hurt our ability to show God's love to the world, and about that Mayfield is absolutely right.
• America as Rome. "There is nothing in Scripture, nothing in Jesus, that says my proud and terrible and interesting country is particularly blessed, has some special favor, has some special reason for existence," Mayfield says. Most of us have probably run into a sermon or a curriculum in which the United States is presented as the modern Israel, the Chosen Nation of the Christian era. Mayfield argues that, instead, the US is more like Rome or Babylon -- the powerful empire of the era, casting a shadow of spiritual error and physical suffering in which the people of God must live.
"We were founded as a Christian nation!" so many people say. There's probably some sense in which that is true, but it doesn't matter for any one of us individually. "Be sure that it is those of faith who are sons of Abraham." (Gal 3:7) The new Israel is those of all nations who follow God, not those who were born within a specific political boundary drawn on a map.
• Generosity. As a dyed-in-the-wool skinflint from day one, this is a hard one for me, but I think this is one of the best and strongest points included in this book. Mayfield talks about how we as a culture pursue affluence, and even positive practices widely encouraged like living within our means, investing wisely, and good financial management can be spiritually destructive if we start relying on ourselves and thinking we are in control. She talks about a time when she didn't give to a panhandler, saying, "If I was listening to the Spirit I would have given... believing that I had a role in providing for others just as I trusted that my own needs would be provided for."
That kind of mindset, exemplified by Mayfield's stories of her refugee friends who think nothing of giving even when they have little, like the widow with her mite or the church in Macedonia, is utterly alien to me. I have plenty, and still shudder at the thought of giving any away just in case the worst happens and I need it later. As a Christian, that's not how I should think. Consider the lilies of the field, after all. But I don't. I like to rely on myself, and only rely on God when I have no other recourse. A completely backwards relationship.
I have rarely heard a sermon on the Rich Young Ruler that didn't spend half its time disclaiming that being rich is okay, God never says being rich is wrong, as long as your priorities are right. That's not at all anywhere near the point of the encounter, and I think it speaks to a tendency to hoard that is shared by more than myself. Christians are told to "labor, performing with his own hands what is good, so that he will have something to share with one who has need." I think this is something we don't talk about enough, and that I needed to hear.
• Worldly success as the reward of virtue, and worldly struggles as a punishment for some moral failure. Even those who speak with contempt of the prosperity gospel can get tricked into holding this assumption, because it is one of the base elements of American culture and almost impossible to escape. We are told that if you work hard, you will succeed. Therefore, what are we to think about people who don't succeed? Well, they must not have worked hard.
It's a simple, intuitive arithmetic that's reinforced by much of our culture. Especially upper middle class white culture. And it leaves out half the story, while completely ignoring what the Bible says. "For some, the good news of the American Dream feels like bad news," says Mayfield. "I live in neighborhoods where I see the evidence of it everywhere: payday loan companies and fast food joints abound, but there are no green parks or community centers or apartments that are affordable."
I think she makes a powerful point using "good news" and "American Dream" in the same sentence like that, because they are not at all the same, and we make a grave mistake with possibly far-reaching consequences when we conflate them. God does not promise that wealth follows righteousness, so judging those who don't achieve it as if they somehow proved unworthy should sound ridiculous to any Christian.
• American evangelical paranoia with losing the culture war. Mayfield says that white Evangelicals who panic at the thought of becoming a minority in their own country are thinking empire thoughts. The Church is meant to be a remnant, a people set apart, wanderers in a land not our own. Not an empire. I think the point she makes about those in power fearing to lose it is a poignant one, and for Christians a dangerous one, since the last shall be first and the first shall be last. If our peace of mind comes from our position of cultural dominance and can be shaken so easily, we can hardly be trusting in God.
This book was terrifying, as losing control of your mind usually is.
It is written in parallel, the author's memories of the psychiatric ward laid in between bits and pieces of the rest of her life story. At the beginning it feels a bit plodding, taking in a stranger's stories of her childhood and wondering why you should care, but as you get to know the author and her loved ones you can't help but feel the dread and powerlessness of her eventual psychiatric break.
It is written in parallel, the author's memories of the psychiatric ward laid in between bits and pieces of the rest of her life story. At the beginning it feels a bit plodding, taking in a stranger's stories of her childhood and wondering why you should care, but as you get to know the author and her loved ones you can't help but feel the dread and powerlessness of her eventual psychiatric break.
This book had some decent things to say.
Its thesis is that most people have values and an identity that encompass great, important things like "family" and "community" and "kindness," but that throughout our daily lives most people find themselves acting in ways that are inconsistent with those values. (Neglecting relationships, making choices based on fear of what others will think, snapping at spouse or children.) In the moment, the choice that is instinctively comfortable will not make us comfortable in the long term.
Continuously choosing short-term validation (overeating for comfort, overbooking yourself) will only lead to increasing dissatisfaction and trouble in the long term, as we stray further and further from what our actual values (a healthy lifestyle, doing your best at every task you undertake) might be. The author advocates "Embracing Uncomfortable" and making the hard choices in the short term, to give yourself a long-term existence that is more peaceful and authentic.
This book is written by someone who is a Christian, though it took me several suspicious chapters to find actual proof of that, but in a broad enough way to encompass people of any (or no) faith. I was just kind of relieved that it wasn't based on Zen.
Aside from that, the author is one of the "type-A, always overbooked, struggles to say 'no' to anything" sort of people who often seem to write self-help books. This is not me at all. My favorite word is "no." So that's always a little interesting; I always have to apply everything the author says by reflecting it into the mirror of my mind's eye and understanding it backwards. She also uses the words authenticity and community ALL. THE. TIME. which is always a red flag. (Take meditative walks in the city!! Leave the door of your inner city apartment open to foster community feeling!!!)
Despite this, she has some big points. The primary strategies offered were:
These were all right, but I found her overall truths to be more helpful than the strategies.
Her points about having to "accept that fear will always be a part of your life" and "picture what moving forward in spite of your fear would look like" were call outs specifically to me. And, of course, her central point that mindless instinct seeks comfort like water flowing downhill, and leads away from the real goals we are trying to achieve. There was a lot in here that I took to apply to my constant battle with eating healthy, but anyone with an uncontrolled behavior that they want to change, but haven't been able to yet, would likely benefit from the clarity laid out in this book.
Its thesis is that most people have values and an identity that encompass great, important things like "family" and "community" and "kindness," but that throughout our daily lives most people find themselves acting in ways that are inconsistent with those values. (Neglecting relationships, making choices based on fear of what others will think, snapping at spouse or children.) In the moment, the choice that is instinctively comfortable will not make us comfortable in the long term.
Continuously choosing short-term validation (overeating for comfort, overbooking yourself) will only lead to increasing dissatisfaction and trouble in the long term, as we stray further and further from what our actual values (a healthy lifestyle, doing your best at every task you undertake) might be. The author advocates "Embracing Uncomfortable" and making the hard choices in the short term, to give yourself a long-term existence that is more peaceful and authentic.
This book is written by someone who is a Christian, though it took me several suspicious chapters to find actual proof of that, but in a broad enough way to encompass people of any (or no) faith. I was just kind of relieved that it wasn't based on Zen.
Aside from that, the author is one of the "type-A, always overbooked, struggles to say 'no' to anything" sort of people who often seem to write self-help books. This is not me at all. My favorite word is "no." So that's always a little interesting; I always have to apply everything the author says by reflecting it into the mirror of my mind's eye and understanding it backwards. She also uses the words authenticity and community ALL. THE. TIME. which is always a red flag. (Take meditative walks in the city!! Leave the door of your inner city apartment open to foster community feeling!!!)
Despite this, she has some big points. The primary strategies offered were:
• KNOWING YOUR VALUES AND KEEPING THEM OFTEN BEFORE YOU (A few chapters on the process of discovering your own values. Can't be true to them if you don't know what they are.)
• PAUSING (Taking "intentional" time to pause and reset yourself, making sure that you're not letting the power of instinct take you off the path you want to be on and towards corner-cutting short-term comfort. AKA meditation? AKA mindfulness?)
• RADICAL ACCEPTANCE (The process of accepting instead of fighting tooth and nail with your own emotions and circumstances, the first step in being able to make changes.)
These were all right, but I found her overall truths to be more helpful than the strategies.
Her points about having to "accept that fear will always be a part of your life" and "picture what moving forward in spite of your fear would look like" were call outs specifically to me. And, of course, her central point that mindless instinct seeks comfort like water flowing downhill, and leads away from the real goals we are trying to achieve. There was a lot in here that I took to apply to my constant battle with eating healthy, but anyone with an uncontrolled behavior that they want to change, but haven't been able to yet, would likely benefit from the clarity laid out in this book.
I know a lot of very serious Christians who scoff at the mention of Trump's name.
But that's not unusual -- he's a thrice-married serial philanderer, liar, and cheater from the seamy world of porn stars, casinos, and reality TV. What could be more off-putting to a group of people who have continually rejected even the blandest candidates for the fatal crimes of being not committed and not Christian enough?
What is unusual is that I know a LOT MORE very serious Christians who voted for him, and continue to praise him, and will vote for him again.
Where is this coming from? Establishment types like John McCain and Romney, and even candidates on the more extreme side of "family values" like Ted Cruz and Rick Santorum were throwaways, but this guy is the one? For dedicated culture warriors who have bemoaned for decades our culture's slide toward rampant immorality and decadent selfishness to back Trump, who practically idealizes that trend in one person, seems like the height of hypocrisy.
I was hoping this book would delve into this baffling phenomenon, and help me understand. It... sort of did, and sort of didn't.
Because it's a little difficult to find, here is the author's thesis up front:
The first chapter or two go right to the heart of the thing with a matter-of-fact exploration of the "religious" figures Trump surrounds himself with. I have spent the last four years looking away from politics and generally wincing, so most of this was new to me. I had wondered, when stories like the Paula White "satanic pregnancy" speech break, where he was getting all these insane people; it makes sense that they're all prosperity gospel televangelists.
The nature of televangelists is to be snake oil salesmen, and turn defrauding the vulnerable into something praiseworthy. It's a good gig, too -- in what other business can you blatantly enrich yourself off the backs of others and claim it's a sign of your faith? It makes perfect sense how Trump would fall in with these people, since they are cut from the same cloth.
As the author says:
Sickening, but probably true. These hucksters are perfectly willing to hail him as the divinely anointed savior of America, and he is perfectly willing to be called so. A match made in heaven, and then on the ground all the middle-aged women get to share poorly-made meme graphics on Facebook praising Trump for having prayer meetings in the White House.
Most will be too afraid to repost the truth. Share if you're praying for our leader!!!
This book overall is written in a flat style that reads, in some places, more like a dense list of names and facts than anything else. Still, it starts off strong, tying Trump and the televangelists together with undeniable insight. Next, the book turns its focus to the other piece of the puzzle: the alt-right. Its portrait of the mixed coterie of old guard political racists, veterans of the segregation fights, and the young up-and-coming neo-fascists tired of the oppression of "political correctness" and filled with a deep anxiety about their place in the world is stirring and scary.
Anti-immigrant sentiment is one of the most powerful political trends lately, and probably the biggest thing all of Trump's base would agree on. It's clear how both the "white pride" of the alt-right and the anti-Islamic, anti-Mexican (sometimes anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish) feelings of the white evangelical voters stem from the same place: fear of losing power.
After the first chapter covering the alt-right, though... the book gets even denser. I waded deeper and deeper into the soup of political history, hoping that eventually the framework of a tight argument would become clear. But it didn't. The author relates, essentially, the story of the rise of the modern conservative political establishment. She excavates its roots in pro-segregation activism, claims they never cared about abortion as much as they say, dives into NGO after NGO, think tank after think tank, journalism and activism over the decades since the sixties -- all this to paint a picture of the powerful right-wing apparatus that stood ready to drive into action, reshaping the government in its own image, as soon as anyone was brave or stupid enough to give them the chance.
Trump was that someone, the author claims, and it's not even about Trump. Going back to the thesis laid out in the epilogue, it's about the power.
I haven't even touched on the chapters about the right wing's global affinity for nationalist strongmen, which were interesting (if a little bit mind-numbingly thorough.) This author is an experienced journalist and considered an expert on the religious right. She clearly has spent decades marinating in these particular circles, which is interesting because she seems to have absolutely no regard for any of their beliefs.
This book is not an argument about whether anything claimed about Trump or his followers is true or not true. Trump's racism and lies are presupposed facts. The undercover Planned Parenthood videos are "deceptive." Religious freedom is a crock argument put forward today by the same conservatives and for the same reasons as they wielded it against racial integration of schools.
"Religion, though, is just a cover for the endgame," says the author.
But is it? Certainly, she makes an excellent case that at the national level, anyone arguing religion is just doing it because it serves their rhetorical purposes. I do believe her that it's all about the power. But on the ground, in our homes? Is the everyday white evangelical voter watching the news and thinking to himself "I'm so glad all this 'God' claptrap is putting us back in power so that we can destroy democratic institutions around the globe." Not the ones I know.
I'm still mostly mystified as to what these people ARE thinking. So, while I got quite the political history education from this book, unfortunately I didn't accomplish my goal.
I might have to do my own research and then write my own book. Some things I can tell you already. There is an amount of genuine fear of legal persecution. There is a vast amount of genuine moral outrage at issues like abortion. There is an amount of blended nationalistic-anxiety-racism-nostalgia about what inevitable demographic changes will mean. And the author was absolutely right about one thing:
IT IS ALL. ABOUT. THE SUPREME COURT.
But that's not unusual -- he's a thrice-married serial philanderer, liar, and cheater from the seamy world of porn stars, casinos, and reality TV. What could be more off-putting to a group of people who have continually rejected even the blandest candidates for the fatal crimes of being not committed and not Christian enough?
What is unusual is that I know a LOT MORE very serious Christians who voted for him, and continue to praise him, and will vote for him again.
Where is this coming from? Establishment types like John McCain and Romney, and even candidates on the more extreme side of "family values" like Ted Cruz and Rick Santorum were throwaways, but this guy is the one? For dedicated culture warriors who have bemoaned for decades our culture's slide toward rampant immorality and decadent selfishness to back Trump, who practically idealizes that trend in one person, seems like the height of hypocrisy.
I was hoping this book would delve into this baffling phenomenon, and help me understand. It... sort of did, and sort of didn't.
Because it's a little difficult to find, here is the author's thesis up front:
His 'base' is not an accident of his unconventional foray into politics, or a quirk of this particular political moment. The vast majority of white evangelicals are all in with Trump because he has given them political power and allowed them to carry out a Christian supremacist agenda, inextricably intertwined with his administration's white nationalist agenda.
The first chapter or two go right to the heart of the thing with a matter-of-fact exploration of the "religious" figures Trump surrounds himself with. I have spent the last four years looking away from politics and generally wincing, so most of this was new to me. I had wondered, when stories like the Paula White "satanic pregnancy" speech break, where he was getting all these insane people; it makes sense that they're all prosperity gospel televangelists.
The nature of televangelists is to be snake oil salesmen, and turn defrauding the vulnerable into something praiseworthy. It's a good gig, too -- in what other business can you blatantly enrich yourself off the backs of others and claim it's a sign of your faith? It makes perfect sense how Trump would fall in with these people, since they are cut from the same cloth.
As the author says:
Trump has succeeded in captivating white evangelical voters not just because he has befriended certain high-level leaders in the evangelical world. He has succeeded because there is virtually no leader in the evangelical world he wouldn't welcome by his side--as long as that leader pledged allegiance to him.
Sickening, but probably true. These hucksters are perfectly willing to hail him as the divinely anointed savior of America, and he is perfectly willing to be called so. A match made in heaven, and then on the ground all the middle-aged women get to share poorly-made meme graphics on Facebook praising Trump for having prayer meetings in the White House.
Most will be too afraid to repost the truth. Share if you're praying for our leader!!!
This book overall is written in a flat style that reads, in some places, more like a dense list of names and facts than anything else. Still, it starts off strong, tying Trump and the televangelists together with undeniable insight. Next, the book turns its focus to the other piece of the puzzle: the alt-right. Its portrait of the mixed coterie of old guard political racists, veterans of the segregation fights, and the young up-and-coming neo-fascists tired of the oppression of "political correctness" and filled with a deep anxiety about their place in the world is stirring and scary.
Anti-immigrant sentiment is one of the most powerful political trends lately, and probably the biggest thing all of Trump's base would agree on. It's clear how both the "white pride" of the alt-right and the anti-Islamic, anti-Mexican (sometimes anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish) feelings of the white evangelical voters stem from the same place: fear of losing power.
After the first chapter covering the alt-right, though... the book gets even denser. I waded deeper and deeper into the soup of political history, hoping that eventually the framework of a tight argument would become clear. But it didn't. The author relates, essentially, the story of the rise of the modern conservative political establishment. She excavates its roots in pro-segregation activism, claims they never cared about abortion as much as they say, dives into NGO after NGO, think tank after think tank, journalism and activism over the decades since the sixties -- all this to paint a picture of the powerful right-wing apparatus that stood ready to drive into action, reshaping the government in its own image, as soon as anyone was brave or stupid enough to give them the chance.
Trump was that someone, the author claims, and it's not even about Trump. Going back to the thesis laid out in the epilogue, it's about the power.
I haven't even touched on the chapters about the right wing's global affinity for nationalist strongmen, which were interesting (if a little bit mind-numbingly thorough.) This author is an experienced journalist and considered an expert on the religious right. She clearly has spent decades marinating in these particular circles, which is interesting because she seems to have absolutely no regard for any of their beliefs.
This book is not an argument about whether anything claimed about Trump or his followers is true or not true. Trump's racism and lies are presupposed facts. The undercover Planned Parenthood videos are "deceptive." Religious freedom is a crock argument put forward today by the same conservatives and for the same reasons as they wielded it against racial integration of schools.
"Religion, though, is just a cover for the endgame," says the author.
But is it? Certainly, she makes an excellent case that at the national level, anyone arguing religion is just doing it because it serves their rhetorical purposes. I do believe her that it's all about the power. But on the ground, in our homes? Is the everyday white evangelical voter watching the news and thinking to himself "I'm so glad all this 'God' claptrap is putting us back in power so that we can destroy democratic institutions around the globe." Not the ones I know.
I'm still mostly mystified as to what these people ARE thinking. So, while I got quite the political history education from this book, unfortunately I didn't accomplish my goal.
I might have to do my own research and then write my own book. Some things I can tell you already. There is an amount of genuine fear of legal persecution. There is a vast amount of genuine moral outrage at issues like abortion. There is an amount of blended nationalistic-anxiety-racism-nostalgia about what inevitable demographic changes will mean. And the author was absolutely right about one thing:
IT IS ALL. ABOUT. THE SUPREME COURT.
This as an interesting look at World War I through the eyes of the female war correspondents that covered it.
Most of them I had never heard of (with the minor exception of Nellie Bly, who only featured briefly) but I ended the book feeling the desperate urge to strike off, somehow, into the unknown myself. These women were certainly characters, and managed many times through unconventional means to get closer to the action than their male colleagues.
The book emphasizes that they tended to cover the war in a more "personal" way, telling stories of day-to-day encounters and experiences, rather than writing sweeping name-and-date type articles about tactics and strategy. Overall, though, it isn't really an exploration of how WWI impacted the state of women in journalism, nor is it about journalism in WWI in general; it's more a collection of micro-biographies, snapshots of a group of intrepid women, following their correspondence careers until the end of the war.
It was interesting in an "oh, huh" sort of way, but definitely not unforgettable required reading.
Most of them I had never heard of (with the minor exception of Nellie Bly, who only featured briefly) but I ended the book feeling the desperate urge to strike off, somehow, into the unknown myself. These women were certainly characters, and managed many times through unconventional means to get closer to the action than their male colleagues.
The book emphasizes that they tended to cover the war in a more "personal" way, telling stories of day-to-day encounters and experiences, rather than writing sweeping name-and-date type articles about tactics and strategy. Overall, though, it isn't really an exploration of how WWI impacted the state of women in journalism, nor is it about journalism in WWI in general; it's more a collection of micro-biographies, snapshots of a group of intrepid women, following their correspondence careers until the end of the war.
It was interesting in an "oh, huh" sort of way, but definitely not unforgettable required reading.
This book was written by the pro-Victorian asylum gang.
I went into this expecting a normal book about asylums. This is actually the extremely detailed Life in a Medieval Village for late Victorian asylums. If you were writing a historical fiction set in such an asylum, this would be a hugely helpful resource to look at.
The first two thirds of the book were an exhaustive day-to-day examination of a theoretical asylum and all its workings. It was written like a brochure that one might give a prospective new patient, which was a little bit of an odd affectation. The last third was a more normal look at some of the actual historical asylums that informed the brochure, and some of the staff and patients whose experiences were preserved in records for us to read about today.
I went into this expecting a normal book about asylums. This is actually the extremely detailed Life in a Medieval Village for late Victorian asylums. If you were writing a historical fiction set in such an asylum, this would be a hugely helpful resource to look at.
The first two thirds of the book were an exhaustive day-to-day examination of a theoretical asylum and all its workings. It was written like a brochure that one might give a prospective new patient, which was a little bit of an odd affectation. The last third was a more normal look at some of the actual historical asylums that informed the brochure, and some of the staff and patients whose experiences were preserved in records for us to read about today.
I found this book stuffed in a cabinet at work and read it during breaks. It is a series of portraits: easy-to-read vignettes telling tiny parts of the stories of some of the poorest people on the Mexican side of the border. It is from the 1990s, and sometimes seems purposefully vulgar and other times pretentious, but the critical takeaway is that it is terrifying.
"Abolish the police" sounds insane, so I figured I had better look into it.
As we've all undoubtedly heard by now, the plan is not simply to lean into anarchy; the plan is to replace the current system, which burdens the police with solving an impossible amount of social problems, with a massively pared-down police force replaced for the most part by extremely robust social services. This is an easy-to-read breakdown of the major thesis by someone who has clearly spent years studying it. (And for now, the ebook is free.)
Each chapter of the book tackles a specific social problem that the police are expected to be on the front lines of solving. (Or more commonly, "fighting.") Homelessness, drug issues, immigration, etc. The author usually gives a historical flashback, overviewing the history of that problem and how the police have handled it over the years, and then explains the current approach. Each chapter ends with solution ideas, how things would work in a world where these issues were taken out of the purview of law enforcement.
The historical and informational aspects of this book were valuable. The author does a great job of making his case that the way our society currently approaches its problems doesn't work, and that adding incarceration and criminal penalties only creates more dysfunction and damage. I appreciate that he, while having an academic background, writes clearly and succinctly and therefore this book wasn't a horrible pain to read.
What I found most compelling were the many cases in which he was able to demonstrate through case studies that creating comprehensive and well-funded social service programs to tackle issues was actually cheaper than expecting the police to handle it. I know I always think of entitlement programs as massively expensive, as they make up by far the biggest portion of our national budget, despite common complaints about the military. However, it makes sense that solving a problem once, while not cheap, would be cheaper than having to "solve" it over and over and over and over again as the police are forced to do when none of their tools fit the job they were given.
This book is definitely negative regarding the police as an organization. It portrays them as coming from a past of overt racist repression, corruption, acting as political hit-men, and sometimes applies those labels to them as they exist today. However, it does go out of its way to use language that allows for the fact that individual police officers may simply be well-intentioned and doing their best in a broken system, which surprised me a little bit.
The weakest part of this book is the solutions. Which I get, because its thesis is meant to be an indictment of our current law enforcement system, and it accomplishes that goal quite well. To also expect the author to lay out similarly detailed and evidence-based solutions for homelessness, drug addiction, immigration etc. in the same book would be ridiculous. Entire academic careers are made on each one of those subjects, so I don't condemn this book for not delivering the answers to every problem in the universe.
However, as a nation, if we are really going to tackle any of the numerous broken pieces in our society, we do need to have the conversation about solutions. The ones provided briefly here are sometimes:
Overall, I don't agree with everything laid out here (like the overall harmlessness of the sex work industry) but this book accomplished my knowledge-gathering goal. I definitely understand the grievances and goals of the anti-police sentiment that is cresting right now far better than I did simply reading protest signs and clickbait articles.
As we've all undoubtedly heard by now, the plan is not simply to lean into anarchy; the plan is to replace the current system, which burdens the police with solving an impossible amount of social problems, with a massively pared-down police force replaced for the most part by extremely robust social services. This is an easy-to-read breakdown of the major thesis by someone who has clearly spent years studying it. (And for now, the ebook is free.)
Each chapter of the book tackles a specific social problem that the police are expected to be on the front lines of solving. (Or more commonly, "fighting.") Homelessness, drug issues, immigration, etc. The author usually gives a historical flashback, overviewing the history of that problem and how the police have handled it over the years, and then explains the current approach. Each chapter ends with solution ideas, how things would work in a world where these issues were taken out of the purview of law enforcement.
The historical and informational aspects of this book were valuable. The author does a great job of making his case that the way our society currently approaches its problems doesn't work, and that adding incarceration and criminal penalties only creates more dysfunction and damage. I appreciate that he, while having an academic background, writes clearly and succinctly and therefore this book wasn't a horrible pain to read.
What I found most compelling were the many cases in which he was able to demonstrate through case studies that creating comprehensive and well-funded social service programs to tackle issues was actually cheaper than expecting the police to handle it. I know I always think of entitlement programs as massively expensive, as they make up by far the biggest portion of our national budget, despite common complaints about the military. However, it makes sense that solving a problem once, while not cheap, would be cheaper than having to "solve" it over and over and over and over again as the police are forced to do when none of their tools fit the job they were given.
This book is definitely negative regarding the police as an organization. It portrays them as coming from a past of overt racist repression, corruption, acting as political hit-men, and sometimes applies those labels to them as they exist today. However, it does go out of its way to use language that allows for the fact that individual police officers may simply be well-intentioned and doing their best in a broken system, which surprised me a little bit.
The weakest part of this book is the solutions. Which I get, because its thesis is meant to be an indictment of our current law enforcement system, and it accomplishes that goal quite well. To also expect the author to lay out similarly detailed and evidence-based solutions for homelessness, drug addiction, immigration etc. in the same book would be ridiculous. Entire academic careers are made on each one of those subjects, so I don't condemn this book for not delivering the answers to every problem in the universe.
However, as a nation, if we are really going to tackle any of the numerous broken pieces in our society, we do need to have the conversation about solutions. The ones provided briefly here are sometimes:
• incredibly vague ("establishing a reasonable classroom environment through enlightened disciplinary systems")
• compelling (Drug treatment on demand -- do we not have this already? "The cost of housing people and providing them with mental health services is actually lower than cycling them through emergency rooms, homeless shelters, and jails...")
• instinctively repellent but after a second and third look, possibly not as bad as they sound (blanket legalization of drugs + things like free clinics where people could come to shoot up safely under medical supervision, to reduce ODs, organized crime, and disease)
• so extremely idealistic they would require some kind of Utopian world government before there's a snowball's chance in hell they would ever be politically possible (solve the immigration crisis by Marshall Planning all of Mexico and Central America since, after all, "borders are inherently unjust" and we had such a big part in continually destabilizing it over the years)
Overall, I don't agree with everything laid out here (like the overall harmlessness of the sex work industry) but this book accomplished my knowledge-gathering goal. I definitely understand the grievances and goals of the anti-police sentiment that is cresting right now far better than I did simply reading protest signs and clickbait articles.