Hitler was a follower, not a leader. That’s the primary message of chapter 8. I find many of the arguments in this chapter about how demagogues and prophets persuade and lead on point, but I do wonder as to whether they’re truly insightful or counterintuitive in any way. Hugo Mercier cites evidence that Adolf Hitler was very careful about where and how to push the German public in the lead-up to the seizure of power by the Nazis (yes, he toned down some of the anti-Semitism). Mercier also points out that Christian attempts to impose morals and orthodoxy on people have usually failed. It turns out people have a mind of their own, and they often ignore what their social betters or leaders demand from them. In fact he argues that successful populists are nothing more those who are at the right time and place, personifying a mood in the populace and running with that.
The main question I would have here goes back to Hitler: this crazy evil guy sent Germany to the funeral pyre in World War II. Though I take his point, and agree with it, I think Mercier also underestimates how collective manias can grip people. Or, more precisely, he seems to dismiss that these were manias. Perhaps the Germans wanted to invade Russia! Perhaps they wanted to turn into a racial eugenics state!
Second, I think the more and more I read about it the impact of religions such as Christianity are on the margin. Most peasants remained rural pagans in their practices, but organized public paganism disappeared, and their practices and views slowly shifted. Mercier cites the 13th century, but from what I know there were major reform movements in the late medieval period, and of course during the Reformation and the counter-reaction from the Catholics.
The overall message that people have a mind of their own is mostly correct. But I think the exceptions really matter over the long term. So, no Hitler, no Holocaust.
The major topic in chapter 7 is “social and emotional contagion.” The examples to illustrate this phenomenon are often silly, like outbreaks of laughing at high schools, or less silly, such as suicide. Oftentimes something like yawning is given as evidence of social contagion. The major point that Hugo Mercier makes is that
The evidence is not always that compelling in magnitude (e.g., a lot of people don’t yawn, and yawning is often triggered by social distance so that total strangers don’t elicit imitation)
The contagion is often limited to subcultures
The bigger issue seems to be the utilization of the term “contagion.” As we’re living through COVID-19 we don’t need to be told that the analogy fails when the transmission is low, and highly constrained by social variables of group similarity. For example, if contagion only happens with upper-middle-class teenage girls, it is not trivial, but obviously, there is a limit to the spread and effectiveness of the analogy. Just because a 13-year-old girl does something doesn’t mean that you will take this person as a model of emulation.
You use your brain and roll your eyes.
Not Born Yesterday seems to be an extended argument that specific results do not generalize and hold as strongly as their public presentation. On this ground it’s hard to disagree with, though again, you rely on Mercier’s interpretation of the literature.
The summer palace of the Chinese emperor is burned down, and all of Europe is outraged! Well, perhaps not all of Europe, but the most surprising aspect of this chapter to me is the reaction of the British establishment. Rather than being jingoistic, with exceptions, they seem ambivalent to opposed to the aggressive actions of Lord Elgin. This, despite the reality that the European prisoners were truly ill-treated by the Chinese when in their authority.
I suppose this makes me realize again that I tend to see people from an earlier period as bigoted and blood-thirsty when in reality they had morals just like us. These were the British who after all abolished the slave trade, despite their economic interests.
Much of the rest of the chapter is focused on where it should be, on China. The emperor has fled, and his brother is left holding the bag in Beijing. This is a dynasty without virtue at the head. There is great power politics, and possible aid from Russia, along with foreign mercenaries. It’s amusing to read about the Chinese evaluation of Americans as “pure and honest.” How things have changed.
Much of the latter portion of the chapter was hard for me to follow, in that it alludes to the complicated and confused impressions of the Taiping by the rebels, and various diplomatic efforts involving Europeans, Taiping, and the Manchus. Additionally, there seem to be a fair number of European freelancers operating between the various groups.
Total and utter chaos. No one seems to know what’s going on.
Chapter 4 of Not Born Yesterday: The Science of Who We Trust and What We Believe is titled “What to Believe.” You could retitle it “Let’s get Bayesian.” The author basically outlines the reality that people do “plausibility checking” on new information, matching it up to their prior beliefs, and updating based on the credibility of the source or the persuasiveness of the information.
But first, I need to mention that he talks about the “backfire effect”. This is basically the counter-intuitive finding that when presenting disconfirming evidence your beliefs actually get stronger. I first encountered this in 2003 in In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion. But the public is more familiar with Nyhan et al. and its relevance to political science. That is, arguments that should falsify a position only make people more convinced in that position. I’ve heard that this is probably highly overstated, and Not Born Yesterday gets in that. In a replication study of the backfire effect, it turns out that only 1 out of 30 cases replicated. Though there is probably something there, it’s not nearly as big of a deal as psychologists were making out in the 2000’s.
And that’s good. In chapter 4 the author points out that new information that makes your worldview more coherent is immediately absorbed and understood. Additionally, when people are given time to reason or discuss, topics then they tend to converge on a more accurate perspective. The major lesson of this chapter seems to be that though there are instances of biased reasoning or irrationality, on the whole people actually do move toward true beliefs when given the chance and when they make an effort.
Of course, there are cases when collective intuition can lead one astray. The author gives Creationism as an example. Basically, these are cases where the issues are abstruse, and normal humans are flying blind.
Over at Substack someone asked if L. L. Cavalli-Sforza’s works from the 1990’s are worth reading. I had to say, sadly, that probably not. It’s 2020, and they’re just too out of date.
If you haven’t, you should read David Reich’s Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past. It’s already a little out of date, partly due to work from his own lab, but it’s mostly on-point. If you haven’t read it, do so. I can’t see why anyone wouldn’t want to read this book, because you can “hum” through the statistical genetics parts if that’s not your cup of tea. If you aren’t into history, the statistical genetics is still interesting unless you are deeply involved in this field.
In 2017 I posted about books you should read. I began to think about stuff I’ve read since then that has stuck with me. First and foremost, Imperial China, 900–1800. This is an excellent big-think book that will stay with you, and covers the period that really helps you understand modern China today.
Another book that is essential reading is The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire. It’s an excellent environmental history that illuminates a topic most of us are interested in. Additionally, there are facts that are important to know. The author claims that pandemics are really a feature of the broad empires that arose around 0 A.D., while the Neolithic was characterized by endemic local outbreaks.
Outside of my usual domains, John Keay’s Midnight’s Descendents is a quick and readable history of India after 1947. Key is a writer who produces pretty good histories for laypeople, so I recommend most of his books
The First Farmers of Europe is a good academic book for non-academics. I found it via Peter Turchin. No fancy man, lots of facts. Just go slow is what I suggest.
If you haven’t read Joe Henrich’s The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous, do so. It’s not necessarily going to convince you. But, it’s a place where you need to be to start a discussion about all things “Great Divergence.” Even if you think it’s full of crap, it’s something you’re going to have to engage. On the whole, I think your mileage will vary based on the portions of the book you agree or disagree with.
Richard Eaton’s India in the Persianate Age: 1000–1765 is important to read even if you aren’t interested in India. It illustrates global and cosmopolitan culture in a non-Western context. As the European West becomes less of the universal culture of the modern age, it will be useful to know about the past when it wasn’t as well.
Then, there is One Billion Americans: The Case for Thinking Bigger. Why am I recommending this? I think some of you should “hate-read” this. At some point, it is quite likely in the next decade that the “woke” wave will break, and we’ll be back to dealing with neoliberal shills like Matt Yglesias as the “Left” party. Instead of language games, there will be real policy direct from on high.
This is useful in the same way reading theology is useful. You may think it’s nonsense, but people take nonsense seriously. Honestly, I’m not sure if this is the best book to read if you already agree broadly with neoliberalism. But then again, I don’t read books for personal validation.
As a bonus, my favorite book from the 1980s. And from the 1990s. And 2000s. Not a surprise to long-time readers…perhaps.
And finally, I’m no longer the youngest obsessive reader in my line, so here are a few recommendations from the elementary-aged Khans for your own younger kids or grandkids.
My eldest raced through Sayantani DasGupta’s The Serpent’s Secret and Game of Stars when she found them (no ethnocentrism here… she picked them up based on the cover) and was proud to be the first on the waiting list at the library when the Chaos Curse released this spring.
Her highest recommendation though is for linguist and prolific author Donna Jo Napoli‘s mythology series. The National Geographic editions are oversized, beautifully produced and lushly illustrated by Christina Balit. Napoli comes at each project with a scholar’s delight in small details. There are frequent sidebars about the geographical settings depicted, historical and biological references and the linguistic considerations Napoli made in translating. So far, my restless child who won’t even so much as look at an ordinary book she’s already read has circled back and reread these editions cover-to-cover as many as five times each. Her favorites in order are Tales from the Arabian Nights,Treasury of Greek Mythology, Treasury of Egyptian Mythology, Treasury of Norse Mythology. The only one she has left is Treasury of Bible Stories.
One of her siblings meanwhile is dabbling in the deep-thinking currents of our time, with all the subtlety of early elementary school. His simplistic pronouncements, alas, are almost indistinguishable from what that great eminence of 2020 gifts us with here.
Readers have been complaining about Not Born Yesterday: The Science of Who We Trust and What We Believe. The issue is that there’s no “there, there.” The author hasn’t really dug into the meat of his arguments, and everything was pretty thin and cursory in the first and second chapters. The third chapter is different.
He reviews the literature that people are gullible, that stupid people are gullible, that children are gullible. And he finds them all wanting. For example, he reviews and dismisses the literature on brainwashing and subliminal messaging. This is fine as far as it goes, from what I know these are not real things, but more public panics. I’m not sure that that is the strongest argument against gullibility.
In contrast, the idea of an evolutionary “arms race” between communicators and communicated speaks more to why we are not gullible. In evolutionary arms races, such as with disease, the two competitors tend to stay in place. Ultimately the equilibrium is maintained. This is obviously not the case for human communication. Rather, there’s a lot of evolutionary theory which suggests that there is a “ratchet” of increased complexity and richness of our cultural repertoire that emerges from social communication. If gullibility was so pervasive, it should have been selected against in this environment. Gullible people are marks.
The other angle that this chapter takes is to attack the relevance of “system 1” and “system 2” thinking that was popularized by Daniel Kahneman in books such as Thinking Fast, Thinking Slow (system 1 and 2 respectively). System 1 is fast, but subject to cognitive biases (it can be deceived), while system 2 is slow, but analysis takes time. One of the implications of this is that more analytical people, who rely on system 2, will be less gullible. I won’t go into the detail, but Not Born Yesterday presents an interpretation of this literature that suggests that gullibility again is not at play here. In fact, the authors suggest that system 2 itself can be easy to deceive or come to the wrong conclusion quite often. In fact, I kept thinking of the author’s previous book, The Enigma of Reason, which presents some arguments for why system 2 originally emerged.
I mentioned offhand earlier today that Jacques Gernet’s A History of Chinese Civilization is one of the top ten books I’d read. I’ve read this book three or four times that I recall. It’s incredible, and I obviously I’ve only read it in translation.
But this prompted a question: what are the other nine books?
OK, so I’ve given it some thought. I’ll try and balance it out in a disciplinary sense, but I’ll list them now.
Obviously, A History of Chinese Civilization is first. But second? Most of you will not be surprised that I would put Principles of Population Genetics on the list. I still remember reading the third edition front to back the first time in 2004. Yes, I had some knowledge of population genetics before then, but only in fragments. This is the text that opened up a whole new world. Genomics has changed things since the last edition, but the basic principles are the same.
What next? At around the same time that I was diving deeply into the Hartl & Clark book, I read Scott Atran’s In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion. The first time I tried to read this book, in 2003, I felt it was incredibly pretentious and dense. The second time, in 2004, I made my way through it, albeit slowly. It’s not an easy book to read because there are a lot of concepts the author throws at you.
On the whole, I think In Gods We Trust is essential reading to understanding religion, but I’ve also moved a bit further than this, in large part because of the field of cultural evolution. But you need to get the cognitive foundations first, and this book does that.
While we’re on cognitive science, of all Steven Pinker’s books, I think The Language Instinct is the most important. He hadn’t gotten quite so famous, and this book is also close to his core area of research. But his fluid style clarity of exposition shines through. Though The Blank Slate is the Pinker book I’ve enjoyed the most, I believe it is more dated than The Language Instinct.
Again, most readers will not be surprised that I’ll put Bryan Ward-Perkins’ The Fall of Rome: And the End of Civilization on this list. Ward-Perkins changed my view of Late Antiquity with his powerful materialist treatment. I’ve read this book three or four times. It’s a fast read.
What next? I want to say The Selfish Gene, but I have to admit that I read that later than The Blind Watchmaker. Dawkins is criticized as derivative, but he is also an excellent expositor. His books are works of art in relation to scientific communication. They’re worth the time.
I say scientific communication because the further Dawkins veers from science, the less interesting he is. Though I was already an atheist when I read The Blind Watchmaker in the early 1990s, I found the parts relating to religion far less interesting and persuasive than when he focused on science.
So far I’ve listed nonfiction. There’s a reason for that: I almost never reread fiction. Unlike many people, I didn’t have much interest in fiction as a child. I read prose translations of the Iliad and the Oddessy, as well as Clan of the Cave Bear. That’s about it before puberty. When I was 13 I noticed Isaac Asimov had some science fiction books. I picked up Prelude to the Foundation, and the rest is history.
Of the various works of science fiction and fantasy I’ve read, if there is one I would select out of this ten, I would choose George R. R. Martin’s A Storm of Swords. This is book three, but it’s the best of the bunch. Marginally better than book two, A Clash of Kings, and definitely better than book one, A Game of Thrones. Unfortunately, Martin’s books declined with book four and book five. I don’t have high hopes for the sixth book, assuming it ever comes out.
Well, what I will say is that this work was Barzun’s last great distillation of a lifetime of observation and scholarship. It’s an enjoyable “core dump,” and allows one to look into the workings of a brilliant mind. Despite its length, I felt it was a quick read. There isn’t great conceptual depth here, it’s the narrative density of information that drags you along.
This is a massive book, and it is true to its title, interleaving military and diplomatic history with intellectual and social currents. Because Byzantium was placed between the West and the world of Islam, a book like this necessarily touches upon developments further west and east. It’s not simply singularly focused on Byzantium. Additionally, it’s time horizon is not narrow, but sweeps across various epochs, from the end of the Classical period, all the way to the conquest by the Turks.
The final entry is hard, but I’ll give it to Empires of the Silk Road. This is a strange book, but important one. The author shines a light on a different perspective, and ends the work with a peculiar rant against modernism. But imagine a world where the view of the nomad was privileged. That is what Empires of the Silk Road does, giving you a “steppe-eye-view.”
Not Born Yesterday: The Science of Who We Trust and What We Believe starts rather quickly and succinctly out of the gate. The author reviews the extant literature and folk wisdom that humans are gullible, and not suspicious of people trying to swindle them. To a great extent, this is the mainstream view now, with the emergence of the “heuristics and biases” literature, and the field of “cultural evolution” which is rooted in the idea of social cognition.
Social cognition basically means instead of thinking things through yourself you allow the community to decide. As a hadith states, the Ummah shall not agree upon an error. It’s cheap, easy, and good enough. But, this reliance on community means that irrational herds can erupt, and the opportunity arises for ‘cheaters’ to game these systems of information flow (think ‘affinity scams’).
The first chapter of Not Born Yesterday is a capsule of the view not taken in this book, so I assume the best is yet to come.
Since many of you will be taking advantage of “Prime Day” sales, I thought I might as well put some recommendations of books you might be interested in as well, and if you buy other stuff after the initial click I’ll get a cut!
For stuff on religion and culture, I think Atran’s In Gods We Trust is still the best treatment. It’s dated, and probably doesn’t take cultural evolution into account enough. Therefore, read Henrich’s The Secret of our Success.
David Reich’s Who We Are and How We Got Here is a must-read. In part, because the author’s lab might publish stuff soon requiring major revisions. This is a fast-changing field, and Reich gives you a good window upon that.
Hitler was a follower, not a leader. That’s the primary message of chapter 8. I find many of the arguments in this chapter about how demagogues and prophets persuade and lead on point, but I do wonder as to whether they’re truly insightful or counterintuitive in any way. Hugo Mercier cites evidence that Adolf Hitler was very careful about where and how to push the German public in the lead-up to the seizure of power by the Nazis (yes, he toned down some of the anti-Semitism). Mercier also points out that Christian attempts to impose morals and orthodoxy on people have usually failed. It turns out people have a mind of their own, and they often ignore what their social betters or leaders demand from them. In fact he argues that successful populists are nothing more those who are at the right time and place, personifying a mood in the populace and running with that.
