Love Your Enemies

Arthur C. Brooks' book Love Your Enemies motivated me to write him an email. I'm going to expand on that email I sent and make a quasi book review-ish reflection and response to his book. I would recommend everyone at least read the conclusion of Love Your Enemies.

I must admit, the book is somewhat confirmation bias for me. I heard an interview with Brooks and liked the discussion. Then the books mostly provides further evidence and arguments that strengthen my previously ideas. I don't think that is necessarily bad, but that is where I'm coming from. I'm open to alternative and opposing ideas. If anyone knows any please leave them in a comment.

Love Your Enemies is organized very well. Brooks weaves a quasi narrative throughout the book with anecdotes and studies to reinforce his ideas and build on previous ideas. Brooks' anecdotes are appropriate to the story he is telling (more on that below) that people should be more loving to people, especially when they disagree. The book flows effortlessly. It is the kind of book that calls me to action. It inspired me to write a more thoughtful response than I normally would for a book.

Every Thanksgiving, right around this time, I usually make a plan to be more grateful. Thanksgiving is the perfect reminder of how ungrateful people are, myself included. This book is a call to gratitude. It offers an argument to be grateful for differing opinions too.

The book is an easy read or listen.  The ideas are useful and practical advice everyone can apply today. I can't imagine a person not having better conversations after reading this book. This book offers solutions, at least on the individual level.

Those that know me, know I like to argue. But I've noticed myself arguing more and more against ideas I might have accepted prior to the 2016 election. I consider myself a moderate and more of a classical liberal, but many of my friends and family members are antivaccination Trump supporters. I don't think or assume negative attributes to people based on 1 or 2 factors, ideas, or especially voting habits. I know plenty of Trump supporters who are great people, and  I know antiTrumpers who could be a lot better. Over the last 5 years, I have constantly engaged with bad ideas on the left (I do the same with conservatives and the bad ideas on the right, but the conversations are different, maybe I'll explore that too). People, even my friends, have accused me of being all sorts of insults. My favorite is when they say I must watch foxnews. Love Your Enemies offers another reason why I have argued so often and much with liberals: loyalty. When people attack and make generalizations about all "Trump voters," they are making an indirect attack on me through people I love. I realize now that my loyalty to my family was probably a lot bigger influence that I would have previously accepted or thought. Knowing this now will help me not take other people's cognitive distortions personally which should result in better conversations and hopefully better informed interlocutors.

The book references other books I enjoyed like Coddling of the American Mind, another a must read. After reading Coddling of the American Mind I investigated Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). I learned a lot from CBT, especially avoiding and recognizing cognitive distortions. Love Your Enemies pairs very well with The Righteous Mind, Coddling of the American Mind, and "Denialism: what is it and how should scientists respond?" I regularly listen to Michael Shermer’s podcast. Shermer is where I get many of my nonfiction book recommendations. Shermer covers science denial a lot. Love Your Enemies could be adopted as a strategy for talking to science deniers.

I have a problem with chapter 6 "Telling more Stories." Brooks adds and tells stories well in his book and I agree it is a successful strategy to engage readers/viewers. But I also see this as a problem. Stories can easily manipulate people into cognitive distortions, like making generalizations or jumping to conclusions without sufficient evidence. Brooks briefly discusses this dilemma. I prefer the opposite approach. Teach people to be aware of statistics and recognize that one people studies, aka anecdotes, are not reliable information for a big picture understanding. When someone gives a story or anecdote, we need further support to accept the prevalence of that issue/idea. X happened to Person A. Okay, but how many people similar to Person A didn't have X occur? If Person B tries to do Z, what are the chances of Person B succeeding? People need to understand statistics and probability and know when a media source is using a story in good or bad faith. Using a story as an attention grabber and then providing evidence to support the main idea is good faith. Using a story to emotionally create a response to sell an idea without providing evidence is bad faith. Those are generalization. For instance, using selection bias and ignoring conflicting ideas would be bad faith. I'll save that for another rant (Malcolm Gladwell comes to mind as the king of selection bias to persuade people vs inform people). I'm not anti story. I'm pro story and pro critical thinking.

Check out Love Your Enemy! Even if you think you don't need it. You can't get too much advice for love and kindness. Love and kindness with good intentions are never bad ideas.