The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday LifeOxford University Press, 01/12/2017 - 288 من الصفحات Human beings are primates, and primates are political animals. Our brains, therefore, are designed not just to hunt and gather, but also to help us get ahead socially, often via deception and self-deception. But while we may be self-interested schemers, we benefit by pretending otherwise. The less we know about our own ugly motives, the better - and thus we don't like to talk or even think about the extent of our selfishness. This is "the elephant in the brain." Such an introspective taboo makes it hard for us to think clearly about our nature and the explanations for our behavior. The aim of this book, then, is to confront our hidden motives directly - to track down the darker, unexamined corners of our psyches and blast them with floodlights. Then, once everything is clearly visible, we can work to better understand ourselves: Why do we laugh? Why are artists sexy? Why do we brag about travel? Why do we prefer to speak rather than listen? Our unconscious motives drive more than just our private behavior; they also infect our venerated social institutions such as Art, School, Charity, Medicine, Politics, and Religion. In fact, these institutions are in many ways designed to accommodate our hidden motives, to serve covert agendas alongside their "official" ones. The existence of big hidden motives can upend the usual political debates, leading one to question the legitimacy of these social institutions, and of standard policies designed to favor or discourage them. You won't see yourself - or the world - the same after confronting the elephant in the brain. |
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الصفحة ix
... central thesis becoming widely accepted among any large population , even of scholars . As better minds than ours have long advanced similar ideas , but to little apparent effect , we suspect that human minds and cultures Preface.
... central thesis becoming widely accepted among any large population , even of scholars . As better minds than ours have long advanced similar ideas , but to little apparent effect , we suspect that human minds and cultures Preface.
الصفحة 2
... similar transaction lurks within our mod- ern medical system , except we don't notice it because it's masked by all the genuine healing that takes place . In other words , expensive medical care does heal us , but it's simultaneously an ...
... similar transaction lurks within our mod- ern medical system , except we don't notice it because it's masked by all the genuine healing that takes place . In other words , expensive medical care does heal us , but it's simultaneously an ...
الصفحة 7
... similar arguments from an evolutionary perspective, and we draw heavily from his work as well. Our aim in this book, therefore, is not just to catalog the many ways humans behave unwittingly, but also to suggest that many of our most ...
... similar arguments from an evolutionary perspective, and we draw heavily from his work as well. Our aim in this book, therefore, is not just to catalog the many ways humans behave unwittingly, but also to suggest that many of our most ...
الصفحة 10
... similar reasoning applies to many other areas of life. Here's another way to look at it. The world is full of people acting on motives they'd rather not acknowledge. But most of the time, opposing inter- est groups are eager to call ...
... similar reasoning applies to many other areas of life. Here's another way to look at it. The world is full of people acting on motives they'd rather not acknowledge. But most of the time, opposing inter- est groups are eager to call ...
الصفحة 14
... similar to the choice Morpheus offers Neo in The Matrix . " After this , " Morpheus warns , holding out a blue pill in one hand and a red pill in the other , " there is no turning back . You take the blue pill - the story ends , you ...
... similar to the choice Morpheus offers Neo in The Matrix . " After this , " Morpheus warns , holding out a blue pill in one hand and a red pill in the other , " there is no turning back . You take the blue pill - the story ends , you ...
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