American Carnage by Tim Alberta; Delusions of Crowds by William Bernstein – vel veeter Book Review

American Carnage – 4/5 Stars

I really did not know if I wanted to read this book or not given how much of this I lived. But what works for this book is that it catalogues a series of internal strifes among Republicans and Conservatives, keeps that focus on politicians and prominent thinkers, and avoids the American voters as much as possible.

Why this helps things: for one, looking around on any given day, I am reminded of some very deeply selfish motivations among my fellow citizens. In plenty of these behaviors I have good reason to know that they’re perpetrated by Republicans/Conservatives. Sometimes it’s tied clearly to political events, politicians, goals. In other cases, like in traffic, their brand of politics is emblazoned on their vehicles. And other times, I can just tell.

So I don’t need to know about them. And all the books of the last few years that have tried to explain the rationale for the political choices

(Photo: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44148905-american-carnage)

The Delusions of Crowds – 2/5 Stars

Vel Veeter

2,711 reviews23 followers

October 25, 2021

I kept waiting for this book to really answer the question of why people go mad in groups. The author commits a fatal flaw in the opening: telling you about a book that sounds more interesting than the book we’re reading. I am sure the Scottish book from the mid-1800s is a little more rough-going than described here, but it sounded more appealing.

Other reviewers have talked about how anti-religion this book is, and well it’s hard to fault them for feeling that way. This book does tackle religions by way of delusions throughout, but my issue is less that religions get targeted, but that the definition of delusions by way of religions makes much sense based in historical record. For me, religions often try to make sense of a world around them, and sometimes in the face of overwhelming evidence adapt their beliefs to suit facts. Plenty of times they do not. The issue though is that science is the pursuit of truth, but it doesn’t always automatically find facts so much as eradicate untruths. And many many untruths dominate eras as much as truths do. Sometimes because it’s the best guess given a moment and sometimes through deceit, through faulty premises or clear biases, etc. And like with religions, are they delusions? or just wrong?

The biggest issue with the book is that it’s kind of long and boring and not nearly as academic as it purports to be.