R. Steiner

An engaging reflection on Marx

Revisado: 07-07-23

Marx is a lot more sophisticated a thinker than I had given him credit for. In this companion, Harvey does a wonderful job of flushing out the connections and hidden implications in Marx’s least understood work. This companion gave me a new appreciation for Marx as a theorist of systems, a thinker whose careful analysis of the pressures, patterns and feedback loops of capital leads to an incredibly sophisticated and prescient analysis of the impacts of living in a capitalist model of production. A very insightful reflection.

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Interesting…but also awkwardly and unnecessarily essentialistic

Revisado: 02-03-23

An interesting history of writing. The history itself is fascinating…but the author’s writing feels awkward and problematic at times. She is a flowery writer whose prose is filled with metaphors and insightful comparisons, but also a lot Eurocentric essentialism. She writes poetically about the scripts of Cyprus as if they capture some essence of Europe and gets awkwardly less flowery and more dismissive when writing about non-European scripts. All of this is completely unnecessary; the book would have been just as compelling if we didn’t take the step of presuming that written language is somehow expressive of the heart of a people or a place.

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An interesting read, but a poorly done history

Revisado: 08-05-21

Interesting ideas…but a kinda poorly done history. Winchester seems to rely heavily on broad, unsupported generalizations that fail to acknowledge or distinguish between what we do and don’t know.

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Simplistic advice...

Revisado: 02-14-17

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

This book wasn't great. The main take-home message was that, statistically speaking, you can only reasonably expect to find a partner with 3 'traits' and you need to be careful what traits you pick so you don't end up giving up something you need to be happy for something that you don't. Ok...but what is a 'trait'? That point was never well defined. In theory, any trait could be defined in positive or negative terms (i.e., 'I would like a partner who attractive' or 'I would like a partner who is not unattractive'), and many traits might be better described as an absence of something (i.e., cheating, abuse, etc). So, let's brainstorm possible partner traits. Trustworthy. Non-abusive. Physically mobile (i.e., able to walk). Attractive. Doesn't use drugs. Funny. Respectful to your parents. Rich. Won't cheat on you. Interested in having sex with you. Etc. So, remember you can only pick 3, so let's say you decide that you want a partner who is 1) respectful to your parents, 2) physically mobile, 3) won't cheat on you...does that mean it is OK to put up with an abusive partner? Or a partner who is a drug addict? Are you really asking too much to want a partner who respects your parents AND isn't abusive??? This example may take it to the absurd extreme, but the book's basic premise doesn't work. We expect our partners to be a lot of things; picking someone who happens to meet three criteria is one way to go about it, but it is disingenuous to imagine that we should give up on everything else about a partner if we can find someone with those 3 traits. In my dating experience, I am less shopping for traits and more looking for red flags--and there are a lot of red flags to be wary of. This book was kind of useless for those problems.

Would you ever listen to anything by Ty Tashiro again?

Probably not. Wasn't really impressed.

What character would you cut from The Science of Happily Ever After?

This was a non-fiction book.

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esto le resultó útil a 8 personas