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A review by mildo
The Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense by Gad Saad
1.0
1.5*
Quoting the author himself:
"Beware of those trying to impress you with confusing word salads"
Don't get me wrong, I agree with many of his opinions, but not with arguments behind them. In fact, I can't remember an argument which he used to support an opinion I agree with that I would agree with.
The Parasitic Mind might have been a good book... if it wasn't written by "a parasitic mind", by a narcissist who is, on numerous occasions, hiding behind "scientific view", but majority of his arguments are either backed by an anectodal evidence or argued with numerous logical fallacies. Be it a red herring, a slippery slope, a false dilemma or a strawman. He uses a strawman so often that the book should have rather been called a Strawman mind. I must give him credit for being a very skillful writer so you must listen/read carefully to catch those.
What I dislike about the content of the book is that the author is pointing out many -isms and -ist ideologies (like progressivism, leftism, feminism, postmodernism, transgenderism, relativism) without even defining what those terms mean to him. Some of these ideologies are either not strictly defined or are so broad that it is not clear what part of an ideology is he critisizing. Other problem about his fight against these ideologies apart of already mentioned fallacies is that his critique is very black&white. E.g. He criticizes a person for a behavior or an opinion being a small subset of an ideology and the person is automatically put in a box of this ideology. Many people mentioned in the book are seen through a prism of a specific ideology even though they in fact don't have to be affiliated to all of the ideas of such ideology. On the other hand he mentions Donald Trump at least a few times per chapter within first 3 chapters, but he hasn't used a single opportunity to criticize him despite criticizing many others on the other side of political spectrum. That tells a lot about his mental compass.
Personally I also dislike the sarcastic discourse he uses throughout the book.
It's fair to say that I haven't listened to the whole book. I've finished somewhere in the 4th chapter. In the 2nd chapter I've started realizing something is wrong, but I wanted to find out whether it is something wrong about my moral compass or there is something wrong about this book.
All in all I recommend reading this book, but only with a firm focus and as a catalogue of argumentation fouls.
Quoting the author himself:
"Beware of those trying to impress you with confusing word salads"
Don't get me wrong, I agree with many of his opinions, but not with arguments behind them. In fact, I can't remember an argument which he used to support an opinion I agree with that I would agree with.
The Parasitic Mind might have been a good book... if it wasn't written by "a parasitic mind", by a narcissist who is, on numerous occasions, hiding behind "scientific view", but majority of his arguments are either backed by an anectodal evidence or argued with numerous logical fallacies. Be it a red herring, a slippery slope, a false dilemma or a strawman. He uses a strawman so often that the book should have rather been called a Strawman mind. I must give him credit for being a very skillful writer so you must listen/read carefully to catch those.
What I dislike about the content of the book is that the author is pointing out many -isms and -ist ideologies (like progressivism, leftism, feminism, postmodernism, transgenderism, relativism) without even defining what those terms mean to him. Some of these ideologies are either not strictly defined or are so broad that it is not clear what part of an ideology is he critisizing. Other problem about his fight against these ideologies apart of already mentioned fallacies is that his critique is very black&white. E.g. He criticizes a person for a behavior or an opinion being a small subset of an ideology and the person is automatically put in a box of this ideology. Many people mentioned in the book are seen through a prism of a specific ideology even though they in fact don't have to be affiliated to all of the ideas of such ideology. On the other hand he mentions Donald Trump at least a few times per chapter within first 3 chapters, but he hasn't used a single opportunity to criticize him despite criticizing many others on the other side of political spectrum. That tells a lot about his mental compass.
Personally I also dislike the sarcastic discourse he uses throughout the book.
It's fair to say that I haven't listened to the whole book. I've finished somewhere in the 4th chapter. In the 2nd chapter I've started realizing something is wrong, but I wanted to find out whether it is something wrong about my moral compass or there is something wrong about this book.
All in all I recommend reading this book, but only with a firm focus and as a catalogue of argumentation fouls.