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The Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense
Author: Gad Saad. Publishing year: 2020.
The Parasitic Mind: explores a series of intellectual parasites. These are ideas that infect our reasoning and poison our emotions, just like biological parasites affect the health of our body.
“The quest for truth should always supersede one’s ego-defensive desire to be proven right.”
This is a controversial point of view and a very engaged exposé.
The Mind Parasites
The theory of the book is that mind parasites threaten our Western civilization.
Gad Saad identifies this parasites and approaches them one by one. His goal is to understand and avoid them. First on the list we have political correctness. We can read examples from very recent political situation that explain this ideas.
Next we have postmodernism and social constructivism. They might be less familiar to the reader. And finally we have radical feminism and transgender activism.
In order to protect our values we need to be aware of the damage this trend is making.
Our Core Values
To help us fight this battle we have our core values: truth, freedom of thought and speech and the scientific method.
This fight needs to start early. For example, with educating the youth, in academic setting:
“If they go unchecked, parasitic idea pathogens, spawned by universities, eventually start to infect every aspect of our society.”
The author is is passionate and controversial. Even more, the arguments are lengthy and made with skill. As a result, readers that don’t necessary agree with this point will enjoy having their horizons expanded.
If you are already familiar with Gad Saad’s work’s and ideas this is a must read. Above all, its in line with his previous work. In addition, it complements his blog on evolutionary psychology.