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Mental Immunity
Infectious Ideas, Mind-Parasites, and the Search for a Better Way to Think
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Astonishingly irrational ideas are spreading. Covid denial persists in the face of overwhelming evidence. Anti-vaxxers compromise public health. Conspiracy thinking hijacks minds and incites mob violence. Toxic partisanship is cleaving nations, and climate denial has pushed our planet to the brink. Meanwhile, American Nazis march openly in the streets, and Flat Earth theory is back. What the heck is going on? And what can we do about it?
In Mental Immunity, Andy Norman shows that these phenomena share a root cause. We live in a time when the so-called "right to your opinion" is thought to trump our responsibilities. The resulting ethos effectively compromises mental immune systems, allowing "mind parasites" to overrun them. Conspiracy theories, evidence-defying ideologies, garden-variety bad ideas: these are all species of mind parasite, and each of them employs clever strategies to circumvent mental immune systems. In fact, some of them compromise cultural immune systems—the things societies do to prevent bad ideas from spreading. Norman shows why all of this is more than mere analogy: minds and cultures really do have immune systems, and they really can break down. Fortunately, they can also be built up: strengthened against ideological corruption. He calls for a rigorous science of mental immune health—what he calls "cognitive immunology"—and explains how it could revolutionize our capacity for critical thinking.
A practical guide to spotting and removing bad ideas, Mental Immunity is a stirring call to transcend our petty tribalisms, and a serious bid to bring humanity to its senses.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
April 16, 2024 -
Formats
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Kindle Book
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9780063003002
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9780063003002
- File size: 3475 KB
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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April 1, 2021
Norman utilizes philosophy, ethics, and psychology to investigate what makes an idea bad, why people are susceptible to misinformation and perilous beliefs, and what can be done to debunk these notions. Cleverly employing the language and ideas of immunology, he likens bad ideas and fallacies to pathogens that can ""infect"" minds. In his view, extreme ideologies, conspiracy theories, and fact-resistant politics can hijack a mind much like a virus infects a cell. He introduces the concept of ""cognitive immunology,"" the ways in which the mind can identify, eliminate, or at least limit the influence of false and harmful ideas. Critical thinking, questioning, and common sense can function as mental antibodies. Norman offers a 12-step program for cognitive-immunity health. Bad ideas and the bad behavior they cause have a long history and won't easily retreat. In the eighteenth century, Voltaire warned, ""Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."" Fortunately, an antidote to false information and dangerous doctrines already exists: truth. As with a vaccine, the challenge is to convince everyone to accept it.COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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