Them: Why We Hate Each Other—and How to Heal by Ben Sasse
(New York: St. Martin/Macmillan, 2018), 256
Introduction
- “If we really want to be happy we must plant roots and attend to them” (14)
Chapter 1 - Our Loneliness Epidemic
- loneliness kills
- much depression is caused by loneliness
- Putnam’s scissors graphs show the divergence of rich from poor in America over the past 50 years
- “You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts.” - Patrick Moynihan (36)
- today there are two different America’s: rich (educated) and poor
- family structure is the most important factor in educational success
- four drivers of human happiness:
- Do you have a family you love?
- So you have friends you confide in?
- Do you have work that matters?
- Do you have a worldview that makes sense of suffering and death?
Chapter 2 - Work
- discussion of the changing economy of work
Chapter 3 - News
- confirmation bias in our news consumption
- discussion of Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Kuhn (84)
Chapter 4 - Polarization Business Model
- online news encourages inflaming the passionate 1% on either side
- MASH as an example of the advantages of a shared common culture
- “one hump” (persuade voters in the middle) vs “two hump” (stoke the fires on your side) politics
- “trade primary sources for a week”...watch only the other side’s news
Chapter 5 - Becoming Americans Again
- America is an idea—until it ceases to be so. Each generation must take up the responsibility of keeping this republic
- we need to start with the acknowledgment that we are broken
- Madison saw our propensity to faction and instead focused on designing systems to temper the consequences
- Washington’s restraint in relinquishing the continental army to Congress mirroring that of Cincinnatius in Rome
- ~The Gulag Archipelago referenced 148
Chapter 6 - Set Tech Limits
- smart phones and social media have the power to weaken families and make us less happy....
- rootedness in place, community, family is essential for our happiness
- “We don’t primarily lack technology, we primarily lack wisdom.” (190)
- I’ve thought before of EMI-proofing a room or part of the house to disable electronics...he proposes this same idea on 190
- book: 2018-11-17-The Tech-Wise Family by Andy Crouch
- book: ~2021-11-12-Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman
- stress isn’t having too much to do but having something important to do that we are not making progress on
Chapter 7 - Buy a Cemetery Plot
- Josh Gibbs speech about stages of life, share with Jordan: “Contentment is a condition of the soul, and it does not come from getting what you want, but in giving thanks to God for what you have been given.” (214-215)
- “The wise man learns how to grow where he is planted.” (215)
Chapter 8 - Be a Smarter Nomad
- discussion of the sharing economy as reducing transaction costs on the individual level and increasing supply
- we need a new neighborliness like what Tocqueville observed
Conclusion
- Reject anti-identities: recognize that there’s a higher-level bond that unites us
- Put politics in its proper place (which is below civics and downstream of culture)
- Lincoln: “If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live though all time, or die by suicide.” (248)
- We need to live local
Acknowledgments
- He gives interesting insight to his writing process, and how in this book since he finds writing do be dreary how he outlined and edited more than usual
Created: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2022-11-17-Thu