Brilliant book worth every page/second of listening!

I found this book fascinating! Shocking at times, as I was forced to question my own beliefs and ideas, while the author was beautifully building his arguments. A good example: I always thought that empathy can be only good. But I was proven wrong - it’s also empathy that may lead and have led to genocides.

In short, the book takes you on a journey to analyse ideas, how they form (or die), and how they affect us and the world. The author did an amazing job making it easily digestible by creatively including many interesting stories, studies, and examples, as it could’ve easily been dry otherwise, considering the massive amount of studies it is based on.

I’d say the first part builds up the logic and background to then explain the key thesis of the book in the second part. The key thesis talks about how powerful ideologies are in combination with a need for belonging and how wrong it is to ignore the innate need for group boundaries. My takeaway was quite political: if you want a more liberal world, don’t try to delete all the boundaries as it will backfire. I know it sounds odd, but he has a (good) point.

In the end, the book goes back to the reader and the author personally, taking you back to questioning your own ideas in a more structured and compassionate way and giving tools to make the change. It didn’t feel judgy or prescriptive, and the author himself is open about his flaws and how he tries to become a more aware, better human being. And he does it kindly too. “We can be kind to ourselves, reality is impossible to understand, and therefore, in our attempts to base our decisions on reality, we can only hope to be less wrong”.

Overall - brilliant book with a great narrator. I highly recommend it and hope it will reach many readers, especially the ones with decision making power.

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