Love Your Enemies, Arthur C. Brooks
Love Your Enemies, Arthur C. Brooks
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Love Your Enemies
How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt

Author: Arthur C. Brooks

Narrator: Will Damron

Unabridged: 6 hr 55 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: HarperAudio

Published: 03/12/2019


Synopsis

To get ahead today, you have to be a jerk, right?Divisive politicians. Screaming heads on television. Angry campus activists. Twitter trolls. Today in America, there is an “outrage industrial complex” that prospers by setting American against American.Meanwhile, one in six Americans have stopped talking to close friends and family members over politics. Millions are organizing their social lives and curating their news and information to avoid hearing viewpoints differing from their own. Ideological polarization is at higher levels than at any time since the Civil War.America has developed a “culture of contempt”—a habit of seeing people who disagree with us not as merely incorrect or misguided, but as worthless. Maybe you dislike it—more than nine out of ten Americans say they are tired of how divided we have become as a country. But hey, either you play along, or you’ll be left behind, right?Wrong. In Love Your Enemies, New York Times bestselling author and social scientist Arthur C. Brooks shows that treating others with contempt and out-outraging the other side is not a formula for lasting success. Blending cutting-edge behavioral research, ancient wisdom, and a decade of experience leading one of America’s top policy think tanks, Love Your Enemies offers a new way to lead based not on attacking others, but on bridging national divides and mending personal relationships.Brooks’ prescriptions are unconventional. To bring America together, he argues, we shouldn’t try to agree more. There is no need for mushy moderation, because disagreement is the secret to excellence. Civility and tolerance shouldn’t be our goals, because they are hopelessly low standards. And our feelings toward our foes are irrelevant; what matters is how we choose to act.Love Your Enemies is not just a guide to being a better person. It offers a clear strategy for victory for a new generation of leaders. It is a rallying cry for people hoping for a new era of American progress. And most of all, it is a roadmap to arrive at the happiness that comes when we choose to love one another, despite our differences.

About Arthur C. Brooks

Arthur C. Brooks is president of the American Enterprise Institute, where he also holds the Beth and Ravenel Curry Chair in Free Enterprise. He is the author of eleven books, including the #1 New York Times bestseller From Strength to Strength and bestsellers The Conservative Heart and The Road to Freedom. He is an op-ed columnist for The Washington Post, and host of the podcast The Arthur Brooks Show. Previously, he spent twelve years as a professional classical musician in the United States and Spain, including several seasons as a member of the City Orchestra of Barcelona. A native of Seattle, Brooks lives with his family in Bethesda, Maryland. In the fall of 2019, he will join the faculty of the Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Business School.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Deb (Readerbuzz) on September 11, 2024

Let me start with a story. Back in 2001, I worked for the U.S. Census Bureau. Many people don't know that the Census Bureau does much more than simply count the number of people in the US every ten years. There are ongoing surveys that Americans are asked to participate in. During my years with the C......more

Goodreads review by Mark on March 17, 2019

It has been my conviction for a while now that social media and the daily phony outrages they help spur are rewiring our brains as we speak and make us more stupid. (Ever been on Twitter? Yeah.) Moreover, reading the drivel passing for political insight on our feeds makes us desperate to avoid the l......more

Goodreads review by Betsy on September 18, 2019

I was a little less than halfway through this book when I was anticipating encounters with people who were likely to disagree with me—not enemies, but simply people who would have a different take on things than I did. I'm more okay with this at age 68 than I was when I was younger, but there is sti......more

Goodreads review by Benjamin on April 11, 2019

So I was very skeptical about reading this book, in large part because I can't help being very suspicious of anyone who has served as president of the American Enterprise Institute. Also, I feel like Brigham Young University (my employer) loves Arthur Brooks, and for some reason that kind of annoys......more