Early Birds, July 8, 2021

Book recommendations for summer reading:

George Roberts: The Death of Expertise, The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters by Tom Nichols.

Book summary: "Technology and increasing levels of education have exposed people to more information than ever before. These societal gains, however, have also helped fuel a surge in narcissistic and misguided intellectual egalitarianism that has crippled informed debates on any number of issues. Today,
everyone knows everything: with only a quick trip through WebMD or Wikipedia, average citizens believe themselves to be on an equal intellectual footing with doctors and diplomats. All voices, even the most ridiculous, demand to be taken with equal seriousness, and any claim to the contrary is
dismissed as undemocratic elitism.

Tom Nichols' The Death of Expertise shows how this rejection of experts has occurred: the openness of the internet, the emergence of a customer satisfaction model in higher education, and the transformation of the news industry into a 24-hour entertainment machine, among other reasons.
Paradoxically, the increasingly democratic dissemination of information, rather than producing an educated public, has instead created an army of ill-informed and angry citizens who denounce intellectual achievement. When ordinary citizens believe that no one knows more than anyone else, democratic
institutions themselves are danger of falling either to populism or to technocracy - or in the worst case, a combination of both. A breakout hit immediately upon its original publication in early 2017, Nichols has updated this paperback edition to cover the alarming exacerbation of these trends in
the year and a half since Donald Trump's election. Judging from events on the ground since it first published, The Death of Expertise's a warning about the stability and survival of modern democracy in the Information Age is even more important today."

Pick it up locally at Pages in Kensington, Shelf Life Books or Owl's Nest, or at the usual suspects online. This link will take you to the Shelf Life Books online store - they have it in stock. https://store.shelflifebooks.ca/?searchtype=keyword&qs=The+Death+of+Expertise&q=h.tviewer&using_sb=status&qsb=keyword

Also via George: The Parasitic Mind - How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense by Gad Saad.

Book summary: ""Read this book, strengthen your resolve, and help us all return to reason." —JORDAN PETERSON

There's a war against truth... and if we don't win it, intellectual freedom will be a casualty.

The West’s commitment to freedom, reason, and true liberalism has never been more seriously threatened than it is today by the stifling forces of political correctness.

Dr. Gad Saad, the host of the enormously popular YouTube show THE SAAD TRUTH, exposes the bad ideas—what he calls “idea pathogens”—that are killing common sense and rational debate. Incubated in our universities and spread through the tyranny of political correctness, these ideas are endangering our most basic freedoms—including freedom of thought and speech.

The danger is grave, but as Dr. Saad shows, politically correct dogma is riddled with logical fallacies. We have powerful
weapons to fight back with—if we have the courage to use them.

A provocative guide to defending reason and intellectual freedom and a battle cry for the preservation of our fundamental rights, The Parasitic Mind will be the most controversial and talked-about book of the year."

They have one in stock at Owl's Nest books via this link: https://shop.owlsnestbooks.com/item/p5_EarT6dOPb-Z5aRRjCjw

Dave Hicks: added a pick that would complement the above nicely - The Coddling of the American Mind, How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure by Greg Lukianoff,  Jonathan Haidt.

Book summary: "Something has been going wrong on many college campuses in the last few years. Speakers are shouted down. Students and professors say they are walking on eggshells and are afraid to speak honestly. Rates of anxiety, depression, and suicide are rising—on campus as well as nationally. How did this happen?

First Amendment expert Greg Lukianoff and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt show how the new problems on campus have their origins in three terrible ideas that have become increasingly woven into American childhood and education: What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker; always trust your feelings; and life is a battle between good people and evil people. These three Great Untruths contradict basic psychological principles about well-being and ancient wisdom from many cultures. Embracing these untruths—and the resulting culture of safetyism—interferes with young people’s social, emotional, and intellectual development. It makes it harder for them to become autonomous adults who are able to navigate the bumpy road of life.

Lukianoff and Haidt investigate the many social trends that have intersected to promote the spread of these untruths. They explore changes in childhood such as the rise of fearful parenting, the decline of unsupervised, child-directed play, and the new world of social media that has engulfed teenagers in the last decade. They examine changes on campus, including the corporatization of universities and the emergence of new ideas about identity and justice. They situate the conflicts on campus within the context of America’s rapidly rising political polarization and dysfunction.

This is a book for anyone who is confused by what is happening on college campuses today, or has children, or is concerned about the growing inability of Americans to live, work, and cooperate across party lines."

The book was available to order at any of the local shops with about a 10 day wait. It was available and in stock at Chapters-Indigo - both online and in some store locations.

There's been no shortage of great TV recommended by various Birds. Today, however, there was a warning to AVOID one show on Netflix: Manifest. Thanks to Andy Lockhart for that one, and for the several Birds that heartily concurred.

However Ross Mikkelsen, who has a soft spot for zombies (not at all related to his experiences speaking with customers in his Ontario stores), recommended a local show called Black Summer (now in season 2). If you've ever wanted to see what Inglewood would look like overrun by zombies, this is your show. You may recognize a couple of locations in the trailer:

And now, this week's meeting.