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A review by agrajag
How Pleasure Works: Why we like what we like by Paul Bloom
1.0
(review based on the first ~30% of the book, I abandoned this book and am not going to complete it)
The topic of this book is interesting, so I was hopeful starting out. Unfortunately it quickly became apparent that this is a book that evangelizes the authors one theory at any cost, including making completely unsourced claims that look extremely dubious even to a casual observer.
This book can be summarized with "we like things because we're born essentialists" and that's just not enough meat for an entire book.
The author also seems blissfully unaware about several of the groups he nevertheless write about; for example:
He's either unaware, or doesn't bother mentioning how many people on the spectrum feel about that.
But where he really lost me was with his treatment of gender.
Let me get that straight: he thinks that we're born gender-essentialists, and the evidence he use in favour of that is that 7 year old people who know little about evolutionary theory, still think that gender is a fundamental property of people, and he (or so it seems) thinks that socialization is something that hasn't yet started by age 7, so the views of 7-year old children can be used as evidence that a certain view is NOT a result of socialization? (where does he imagine 7 year old got the idea that human beings are the way we are "because God made them that way" ?)
The topic of this book is interesting, so I was hopeful starting out. Unfortunately it quickly became apparent that this is a book that evangelizes the authors one theory at any cost, including making completely unsourced claims that look extremely dubious even to a casual observer.
This book can be summarized with "we like things because we're born essentialists" and that's just not enough meat for an entire book.
The author also seems blissfully unaware about several of the groups he nevertheless write about; for example:
I used to work with children with autism and was constantly reminded to call them “children with autism” instead of “autistics”—the argument being that there is more to these people than their disorder.
He's either unaware, or doesn't bother mentioning how many people on the spectrum feel about that.
But where he really lost me was with his treatment of gender.
Before ever learning about physiology, genetics, evolutionary theory, or any other science, children think that there is something internal and invisible that distinguishes boys from girls.
Seven-year-olds tend to endorse statements such as “Boys have different things in their innards than girls” and “Because God made them that way” (a biological essence and a spiritual essence). Only later in development do children accept cultural explanations, such as “Because it is the way we have been brought up.” You need to be socialized to think about socialization.
Let me get that straight: he thinks that we're born gender-essentialists, and the evidence he use in favour of that is that 7 year old people who know little about evolutionary theory, still think that gender is a fundamental property of people, and he (or so it seems) thinks that socialization is something that hasn't yet started by age 7, so the views of 7-year old children can be used as evidence that a certain view is NOT a result of socialization? (where does he imagine 7 year old got the idea that human beings are the way we are "because God made them that way" ?)