There are 2 books that have fundamentally shifted my thinking:
- The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics.
This has been covered by CGP Grey and now has a Netflix adaptation, so I figure it lies well within the HN Zeitgeist already. There's a lot to debate in this book, but I fundamentally didn't understand political power before reading it.
- Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men.
I have a more complicated relationship with this one, in fact I never finished it. It's about men (mainly) who are abusive in relationships, and how they are able to manipulate their partners. It hits close to home because I've seen a lot of that growing up, and I've seen a lot of women close to me end up in abuse in a predictable but devastating cycle.
The primary controversial idea is that domestic abuse can be from man→woman, man→man, woman→woman, but the author pretty much discredits woman→man abuse. I don't think I can reconcile that with my own experience. But, where it changed my thinking was a chapter about "it's not emotions, it's values". I'd grown up knowing the importance of emotions and being open and communicative, but I was never able to put to words the disconnect I was feeling. Emotions are secondary, it's what one values that determines their emotions and actions, whether it be in an abusive relationship, or in any other place or time in the world.
It really shifted how I think about the world, and let me sever connections to people I was kept in my life because they'd had a bad childhood or whatever. I realized that they would never get over their turmoil, because they valued using it to hurt others.
- The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics.
This has been covered by CGP Grey and now has a Netflix adaptation, so I figure it lies well within the HN Zeitgeist already. There's a lot to debate in this book, but I fundamentally didn't understand political power before reading it.
- Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men.
I have a more complicated relationship with this one, in fact I never finished it. It's about men (mainly) who are abusive in relationships, and how they are able to manipulate their partners. It hits close to home because I've seen a lot of that growing up, and I've seen a lot of women close to me end up in abuse in a predictable but devastating cycle.
The primary controversial idea is that domestic abuse can be from man→woman, man→man, woman→woman, but the author pretty much discredits woman→man abuse. I don't think I can reconcile that with my own experience. But, where it changed my thinking was a chapter about "it's not emotions, it's values". I'd grown up knowing the importance of emotions and being open and communicative, but I was never able to put to words the disconnect I was feeling. Emotions are secondary, it's what one values that determines their emotions and actions, whether it be in an abusive relationship, or in any other place or time in the world.
It really shifted how I think about the world, and let me sever connections to people I was kept in my life because they'd had a bad childhood or whatever. I realized that they would never get over their turmoil, because they valued using it to hurt others.