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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... what's beneath our wise veneer— a maelstrom of bias and rationalization that we all must— for survival's sake— help ... what we say and do.” —William MacAskill, Professor of Philosophy, Oxford University; author of Doing Good Better ...
... what's beneath our wise veneer— a maelstrom of bias and rationalization that we all must— for survival's sake— help ... what we say and do.” —William MacAskill, Professor of Philosophy, Oxford University; author of Doing Good Better ...
الصفحة 1
... what's useful for staying healthy. Large randomized studies, for example, find that people given free healthcare consume a lot more medicine (relative to an unsubsidized control group), yet don't end up noticeably healthier. Meanwhile ...
... what's useful for staying healthy. Large randomized studies, for example, find that people given free healthcare consume a lot more medicine (relative to an unsubsidized control group), yet don't end up noticeably healthier. Meanwhile ...
الصفحة 3
... What's important is getting a feel for the kind of explanation we're proposing. First, we're suggesting that key human behaviors are often driven by multiple motives— even behaviors that seem pretty single- minded, like giving and ...
... What's important is getting a feel for the kind of explanation we're proposing. First, we're suggesting that key human behaviors are often driven by multiple motives— even behaviors that seem pretty single- minded, like giving and ...
الصفحة 4
... What's interesting is how people obfuscate all this social competition by dressing it up in clinical business jargon. Richard doesn't complain about Karen by saying, “She gets in my way”; he accuses her of “not caring enough about the ...
... What's interesting is how people obfuscate all this social competition by dressing it up in clinical business jargon. Richard doesn't complain about Karen by saying, “She gets in my way”; he accuses her of “not caring enough about the ...
الصفحة 5
... what's really going on. Again, it's not that we're completely unaware of our unsavory motives— far from it. Many are ... what, exactly, is the elephant in the brain, this thing we're reluctant to talk and think about? In a word, it's ...
... what's really going on. Again, it's not that we're completely unaware of our unsavory motives— far from it. Many are ... what, exactly, is the elephant in the brain, this thing we're reluctant to talk and think about? In a word, it's ...
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