A Gut is a Terrible Thing to Waste
Title: “The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement”
Authors: David Brooks
Rank: 5
Blurb: “I try to explain how these findings about the deepest recesses of our minds should change the way we see ourselves, raise our kids, conduct business, teach, manage our relationships and practice politics.”
Review: “People who read books of this type used to be called ‘existentialist.'”
Customers Also Bought: “The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms”, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Footnote: Stop the presses! Rational man discovers intuition! It’ll change everything you know! Unless, of course, like the Greeks, you knew it already.
The Social Animal [Amazon]
Buy or Die [Stinque@Amazon kickback link]
David Brooks also talks about force of will as THE defining force of human history.
Force of Will works under the following circumstances:
1) Tinkerbell
2) …
3) ???
The idiots who blab about force of will are usually deluded assholes who think that egomania is a good thing or fail to grasp that machines such as the tank, machine gun and computer have eliminated such grandiose, bloody and futile gestures such as the French generals of WW1 who pushed the insanity/stupidity of La Grandmaison Doctrine at the cost of millions of French lives.
The law of the Bayonet says: The man with the Machine Gun wins.
David Brooks marching boldly into the past.
“What’s the word? Kloppenburg!”
Even worse: It’s a novel in which he demonstrates his sociological theories through the characters actions. Crimes against literature.
@Mistress Cynica: The New Yorker ran an excerpt a couple weeks ago. Almost impossible to get through. It made his Bo-Bo book look like fine literature.
@Mistress Cynica: I couldn’t get through Émile either, and I have a tolerance for such things.
@Mistress Cynica:
Worked great for Ayn Rand… not really.
BURR DEMING • Tom Lehrer, 1928-2025 Thank you for this, nojo. He was a wonderful talent and, by all accounts, a wonderful human…
NOJO • Tom Lehrer, 1928-2025 Oh, and there’s a Catholic church across the street. Maybe I can do a little dance for them!
NOJO • Tom Lehrer, 1928-2025 Now that I’m in NYC, plenty of pigeons to poison in his honor.
NOJO • All the Vice President's Men 2025 update: Nothing happened. And here we are!
MANCHUCANDIDATE • Weeping Angel Imagine going from hope to Fascism in less than two decades enabled by greedy ass (millionaire)…
NOJO • Nightmare at the Museum From the last time he threatened to bomb Iran, 2020. Remember that one? All a misty blur now.
NOJO • TRUMP TARIFFS UNLEASHING FURY OF CANADIANS - AND THEIR LEGENDARY SNIPERS! @ManchuCandidate: I have birthright citizenship in Cascadia, so I think I’m good.
MANCHUCANDIDATE • TRUMP TARIFFS UNLEASHING FURY OF CANADIANS - AND THEIR LEGENDARY SNIPERS! @nojo: Only the sane parts... like the West coast, New England (minus the Bruins and…
NOJO • TRUMP TARIFFS UNLEASHING FURY OF CANADIANS - AND THEIR LEGENDARY SNIPERS! @ManchuCandidate: So, can you guys annex us now?
MANCHUCANDIDATE • TRUMP TARIFFS UNLEASHING FURY OF CANADIANS - AND THEIR LEGENDARY SNIPERS! PP is done. 51st state, my ass.