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Social philosophy/psychology, or cultural anthropology, is mind-bending to me. Erich Fromm's The Sane Society - on how society impacts people's mental health,
by a_bonobo 6y ago
Social philosophy/psychology, or cultural anthropology, is mind-bending to me.
Erich Fromm's The Sane Society - on how society impacts people's mental health, and how to build towards a sane society
Fromm's The Art Of Loving - an analysis of different kinds of loves, trying to dispel pop culture's lies about love, and love is actually hard work
Ernest Becker's The Denial of Death - on how not our fear, but our complete denial of death existing leads to the weirdest outcomes in our society
Then there's political stuff -
Orwell's Essays, any large-ish collection. I find Orwell to be a much, much better non-fiction writer than fiction writer. Extremely insightful into political processes.
Robert Caro's books, perhaps the first The Years Of Lyndon B Johnson. Can't get better insights into how power works on a local and not-so-local level.
Popper's Open Society and its enemies, hard to summarise - a defense of Western society in light of the then-ongoing WW2. You probably saw the paradox of tolerance a few times pop up, that's from that book, among a ton of other stuff.
- a_bonobo 6y agoOh if you can, try looking for similar recommendation threads from communities completely alien to you - law enforcement forums, midwife communities, car mechanics, biologists. HN is very insular in its interests as you can see with many posts here repeating. Midwives' recommended books probably have a higher chance of truly bending your mind into novel directions.
- minhazm423 6y agoAny good examples of “foreign interest” forums?
- a_bonobo 6y agoI reckon subreddits are a good start, even though their lists are always domain-specific too: Biology: https://www.reddit.com/r/biology/comments/6jfscw/what_are_some_books_that_everyone_studying/ https://www.reddit.com/r/biology/comments/6jfscw/what_are_so... Law enforcement: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtectAndServe/comments/gc13w5/must_read_books/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtectAndServe/comments/gc13w5/mus... Midwives: https://www.reddit.com/r/Midwives/comments/32fw16/book_recommendations_for_aspiring_15_yearold/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Midwives/comments/32fw16/book_recom... Any of the Ask* subreddits usually have practitioners answer: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnthropology/comments/bl759q/anthropology_of_religion_recommended_books/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnthropology/comments/bl759q/ant...
- cloogshicer 6y agoThese are excellent recommendations! Will check out the ones you mentioned that I haven't read yet. Thanks for posting!