Not Reading a Book
Jan. 23rd, 2018 12:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitoutI am Not Reading a Book, thanks to some advice I read on PG.
PG recently had a post where people were describing how they decide whether to buy and/or read a book. Numerous people advocated heavily for reading the “Look Inside” text. I have been having the sample sent to my kindle, which I _think_ is the same as the “Look Inside”, but I’m not entirely certain. In any event, I was recently reading NRC’s coverage of Rolf Dobelli’s book, _The Art of the Good Life_. I thought perhaps I was having trouble understanding the review that I was puzzling out, so I switched to reading about the book in English on Amazon instead, and, on a lark, I thought, oh, hey, I haven’t used the “Look Inside” feature in a long time, I’ll give this thing a look see and decide whether to bother with the sample. What follows is in no way the responsibility of any of the aforementioned people. It’s all one me.
I was so startled by what I read in the first chapter, “Mental Accounting”, that I sat on what I immediately thought, and came back and read it two more times before finally deciding no, I actually should post this. I am a _huge_ believer in reframing, and Dobelli is advocating for reframing in this short chapter as a tool for being happier. Yay! I should love this, right?
Alas, Dobelli’s example of reframing is so breathtakingly reprehensible that I am now unable to think of him without immediately thinking of Jon Ronson’s book _The Psychopath Test_. And not in a good way.
Dobelli has created a fund in his mind for donations to worthy causes. And now, when he _breaks the law_ and incurs a fine, he thinks of the resulting cost as a donation to a worthy cause, thus entirely breaking the feedback system that this fine represents. We are telling Dobelli, hey, don’t speed. Don’t park illegally. Don’t be a jackass. And when we fine him to get his attention, Dobelli thinks, I’m donating to a worthy cause! Yay! I should do it more!
And he has written a book about the good life where this is his _FIRST_ example of what other people should be doing.
Gah.
And people wonder why when I hear someone has a philosophy degree, I just assume they are running the equivalent of a rape camp somewhere.
PG recently had a post where people were describing how they decide whether to buy and/or read a book. Numerous people advocated heavily for reading the “Look Inside” text. I have been having the sample sent to my kindle, which I _think_ is the same as the “Look Inside”, but I’m not entirely certain. In any event, I was recently reading NRC’s coverage of Rolf Dobelli’s book, _The Art of the Good Life_. I thought perhaps I was having trouble understanding the review that I was puzzling out, so I switched to reading about the book in English on Amazon instead, and, on a lark, I thought, oh, hey, I haven’t used the “Look Inside” feature in a long time, I’ll give this thing a look see and decide whether to bother with the sample. What follows is in no way the responsibility of any of the aforementioned people. It’s all one me.
I was so startled by what I read in the first chapter, “Mental Accounting”, that I sat on what I immediately thought, and came back and read it two more times before finally deciding no, I actually should post this. I am a _huge_ believer in reframing, and Dobelli is advocating for reframing in this short chapter as a tool for being happier. Yay! I should love this, right?
Alas, Dobelli’s example of reframing is so breathtakingly reprehensible that I am now unable to think of him without immediately thinking of Jon Ronson’s book _The Psychopath Test_. And not in a good way.
Dobelli has created a fund in his mind for donations to worthy causes. And now, when he _breaks the law_ and incurs a fine, he thinks of the resulting cost as a donation to a worthy cause, thus entirely breaking the feedback system that this fine represents. We are telling Dobelli, hey, don’t speed. Don’t park illegally. Don’t be a jackass. And when we fine him to get his attention, Dobelli thinks, I’m donating to a worthy cause! Yay! I should do it more!
And he has written a book about the good life where this is his _FIRST_ example of what other people should be doing.
Gah.
And people wonder why when I hear someone has a philosophy degree, I just assume they are running the equivalent of a rape camp somewhere.
no subject
Date: 2018-01-30 09:34 pm (UTC)Not All Philosophy Degree Owners
Date: 2018-01-30 10:22 pm (UTC)ETA: I was thinking about the snippet of this book that I read. I did _not_ include another criticism I had of his ideas and examples. Again, I agreed with the principle (don't expend too much time in preparation / setup / planning, because reality will force adjustments anyway -- basically, lean or agile as applied to Life). But his _example_ was breathtaking: he seemed to think that no matter what car you had, if you took your hands off the wheel for even a brief period of time, even on a dead straight road, you'd wind up out of your lane / off the road.
I couldn't figure out whether he has a corroded sense of time (possible! Some people's idea of brief is really not, especially when it comes to driving), or if he's the kind of person who will ruin any car's alignment within seconds of taking the wheel. Given his attitude towards speed limits and parking rules, I'm inclined to suspect that he is generally a bad driver, routinely hits curbs, throws the alignment off and then believes it is the car's fault and not his for damaging it.
Compared to the other problem I had with his ideas (reframing a punishment as a Societally Good Thing He Is Doing!), I felt like there was no point in bringing it up. But as long as I'm here anyway. . .
Re: Not All Philosophy Degree Owners
Date: 2018-01-30 11:03 pm (UTC)I once knew someone who worked downtown and always parked illegally because it was cheaper to pay the occasional ticket than to pay for parking (this was many years ago, when the meterfolk were less numerous and the fines probably lower). And then they deducted the cost of the parking tickets as a business expense (not, of course, labeled as parking tickets, just as "parking"). Chutzpah.