Review of 'How to Think More About Sex' on 'Goodreads'
1 star
So far I thought «Ass Goblins of Auschwitz» would be pretty safely the worst book I've read in 2013, but now I'm not too sure anymore. This book basically is a mix of the worst of Freud, the worst of evolutionary psychology and – for good measure – adds lots of naturalistic fallacies. Put this all in a blender and you end up with this mess… Got any fetishes? Let's grab some Freud. Oh, and evolution made sure sex in relationships will get boring after time, don't rebel against it, it's natural and thus must be fine.
Oh, and did I mention that he actually thinks censorship might be the way to go in order to limit online pornography consumption? The best thing about this is his motivation for encouraging censorship: Because otherwise we stupid people would never come around to read highbrow literature. When I came to this part …
So far I thought «Ass Goblins of Auschwitz» would be pretty safely the worst book I've read in 2013, but now I'm not too sure anymore. This book basically is a mix of the worst of Freud, the worst of evolutionary psychology and – for good measure – adds lots of naturalistic fallacies. Put this all in a blender and you end up with this mess… Got any fetishes? Let's grab some Freud. Oh, and evolution made sure sex in relationships will get boring after time, don't rebel against it, it's natural and thus must be fine.
Oh, and did I mention that he actually thinks censorship might be the way to go in order to limit online pornography consumption? The best thing about this is his motivation for encouraging censorship: Because otherwise we stupid people would never come around to read highbrow literature. When I came to this part of his essay I actually thought I might read a polemic and he would just be trolling…
But in the end his shaky arguments really make me wonder: How could de Botton get a degree in philosophy? Either King's College must be basically handing them out to everyone, or he knows better and is just hoping that his audience won't notice. I can't decide which scenario would be worse.
If you want a longer rant on this book I recommend reading this review.
