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★★★★★
A Funny and Insightful Response to the New Right
"Against the Web" is, among other things, about a group of men who had so little self-awareness that in 2018 they collectively branded themselves as the "Intellectual Dark Web." Even though they all got 24/7 media coverage including fawning coverage in centrist outlets like the New York Times, they liked to think of themselves as brave and dangerous heretics and the media played along. As the President of the United States might put it, "Sad." Since this particular branding exercise had run its course by the time Michael wrote the book, he uses them as a case study in the way that the Right is evolving and finding new ways to package itself. Whatever comes next will likely look a lot more like the IDW than it looked like Rush Limbaugh's 1990s radio diatribes about "feminazis" and Michael is interested not just in countering their sophistical arguments but thinking hard about how a better, smarter, funnier and more strategic version of the left can beat them in the ideological war, he uses his explorations of Sam Harris' juvenile "thought experiments" and Jordan Peterson's hierarchy-justifying gibberish about dragons and witches as a diving board to plunge into much deeper and more interesting waters. What function do these guys serve in justifying an inhumane social order? How can we respond to them in ways that stop feeding their fire with "ANGRY SJW ON COLLEGE CAMPUS TRIES TO SHUT DOWN FREE SPEECH" videos and start offering a more compelling vision--a broadly inclusive and truly global and cosmopolitan version of socialism--that can cut the ground from under the Right's feet? The usual suspects will cry "Ad Hominem" whenever they see someone smarter than them milking humor from their nonsense, but don't be fooled. Michael Brooks isn't just funnier than the opposition. He's a lot smarter and more insightful. It won't take you longer than a couple hours to read this book but you'll be *thinking* about it for a long time.
April 2020 · Kindle Store
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Against the Web: A Cosmopolitan Answer to the New Right
4.8★ · 1,209 ratings, as of 2023
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