Enumerating Platitudes
1 star
This book is so bad it almost becomes good. It's a collection that rehashes the most popular modern takes you can find browsing the average TED talk playlist. There's no consistency, no overarching theme. The title is truthful, it's one big chain of essays rewording Oprah, Brené Brown, Ryan Holiday at best; Deepak Chopra snake oil psychology at worst. Well, truthful if conceding that these are in fact essays, because a few will read like Buzzed text filler before a quiz on what is your "love language". McMindfulness, endless enumerations, jumping to conclusions, silly wordplay. The whole self help bingo is game.
The book was useful in a way. As I powered through each chapter I would stop to ponder: how would an editor fix this essay? Is it salvageable? This advice is simplistic and weak, but in what very specific situations could it possibly be true? I can immediately …
This book is so bad it almost becomes good. It's a collection that rehashes the most popular modern takes you can find browsing the average TED talk playlist. There's no consistency, no overarching theme. The title is truthful, it's one big chain of essays rewording Oprah, Brené Brown, Ryan Holiday at best; Deepak Chopra snake oil psychology at worst. Well, truthful if conceding that these are in fact essays, because a few will read like Buzzed text filler before a quiz on what is your "love language". McMindfulness, endless enumerations, jumping to conclusions, silly wordplay. The whole self help bingo is game.
The book was useful in a way. As I powered through each chapter I would stop to ponder: how would an editor fix this essay? Is it salvageable? This advice is simplistic and weak, but in what very specific situations could it possibly be true? I can immediately think of counter-examples and counter-arguments, but how would I play devil's advocate for this inane position if my life depended on it? It was a tough exercise but a fruitful one, so I am in fact hopeful that these 101 essays changed the way I think (about bad rationale).
