Jun 6, 2022·edited Jun 6, 2022Liked by Rob Henderson
One thing I learned a long time ago is that whenever someone says "This is what people are like" what they really mean is "this is what I am like."
Men who say "all men are pigs" is saying "I am a pig"
Women who say "Women cannot be trusted" are really saying "I cannot be trusted" (RUN!)
People protect themselves with the smokescreen of "everybody" or "people".
Every claim Ed Teach makes in his book about his fellow human beings is actually a revelation of who he is, not of who everybody else is.
And as for his claim that "No one ever asks, 'Am I the narcissist who's hurting my family?'" then he is either a liar or has had very limited social experience.
There are plenty of neurotic people, myself very much included, who think they are always the one at fault. If I read about sociopaths I worry that I am a sociopath; if I read about narcissists, I worry that I am a narcissist.
And I am constantly worried about being a bad mother, even though my son insists I gave him a very happy childhood and that he is happy with himself and his upbringing (when he says that I worry that he is just saying that to placate me because he knows I am actually a narcissist who can't handle criticism from anyone but myself).
This Ed Teach sounds like quite the creep (so does the woman who felt a bizarre need to tell the world she hates her husband - I hope he dumps her).
Anyway, thank you for reading this book so the rest of us won't have to.
Awesome book review, made me think hard about a lot of things, felt like I was being described a few times. Lengthy read but I appreciate that when it's something good.
Not enough people will read this post. Confronting your own envy can be uncomfortable at best and terrifying at worst. In any case, I think it’s great. Thank you for digging into this and offering your perspective.
I can see why the book was so interesting to you, and this was a very well written review and I think you've hit the nail on the head with the type of narcissist Teach is. What I find worrisome is that, as you said at the beginning, so many people you know, and I'm guessing they are elites, find this man really impressive. I'm thinking that the elite group who are your peers might be much closer, on the normal end of the spectrum, of viewing everything as a transaction, though hopefully happy and not jumping through quasi intellectual hoops to justify taking joy in others misfortune.
1) I'm glad I read this so I don't have to read the book. I genuinely feel you distilled anything of value I might have gotten from it without feeling robbed of time.
2) I have so much professional, anecdotal, and epidemiological experience about men with porn that I find the assertion that porn has nothing to do with addiction offensively stupid, and I'm very reluctant to just call things "stupid" without qualification. I have seen otherwise pretty reasonable, decent men's lives absolutely annihilated by porn addiction, and it doesn't take long to see that most of them are the kind of people prone to getting addicted to lots of stuff.
This review gives me the exact same impression of the book that Scott Alexander’s did so I’ll assume you both described it accurately. The guy sounds like a mentally ill person who can’t imagine relatively mentally healthy people even exist. It sounds like the ravings of a bitter angry failure not like anything remotely insightful.
Your review is an excellent one in that it reinforces me in thinking I never want to read this book or anything this guy ever says.
Rob, thanks for writing this. You are acting like the king’s food taster who checked for poisons by biting into the dinner. Sounds like this book took some chewing and digestion. Maybe a few tums too!
I often assume that others think the same way I do despite mountains of evidence to the contrary. Sounds like Teach has the same issue. If you are a certain type of narcissist, the book applies to you, but maybe not most people. What portion of the population is narcissistic?
That said, if your prime motivation in getting into a relationship is to make yourself feel good in the moment, maybe this kind of messed up back stabbing is your fate.
However, if your prime motivation is to bring about good for your beloved (who is not a narcissist) good feeling will follow- including the knowledge that you have actually improved the world a tiny bit.
Most likely, porn use will do nothing but hurt the process of trying to do good for your beloved. See guttermouth’s post, for example.
It seems like Teach was using a small population to describe “all people”. And it is scary to perceive people through such lens and be nice to them even if many of it is true.
I enjoyed reading this and am tempted to say I won’t read the book after this review but it’s probably more reason to.
Some interesting ideas. But I'd say "envy is the desire to deprive" is the most incorrect. Seems to be projection on the author's part. Things are much simpler than that.
““I realize that ‘the system’ is a nebulous…so I’m going to try and define it. I want an ipad, but I can’t afford the $10000 it would cost to make it in America AND generate to Apple the same nominal profit of $300/ipad, so then the ipad has to be made in China with cheaper labor. So while one can say, ‘the consumer wants an ipad,’ and ‘Apple wants $300 in profit per ipad’ the sum of those wants is ‘the system’: ‘The system wants cheap Chinese labor.’ The system doesn’t want it because it’s awesome, it wants it because it added up the wants. To be clear, the fact that ipad consumers don’t ‘want’ cheap Chinese labor is irrelevant. All of their choices want cheap Chinese labor. You can say the same about renewable energies, something that everyone says they ‘want,’ yet all of their choices sum up to the system’s want: the system wants to protect the oil industry. The CEO of ExxonMobil isn’t to blame, you are.” Interesting that you read this as a critique of capitalism and consumerism. To me, this seems more a highlighting of the hypocrisy of many of us. We CLAIM to care about buying goods made in salubrious working conditions in the First World, but when push comes to shove, we show where our priorities lie by how we spend our money. Clearly, having a “cheap” new iPad every two years, even if it’s made in China, is more important than restricting ourselves one expensive American-made tablet every decade. And then, we feel guilty, and so turn around and blame “overpaid American CEOs” who dare to use tax loopholes to legally minimize their income tax, and scream about the rich not paying their share, and go to bed feeling virtuous. We are a society of hypocrites, choosing to blame CEOs, the rich, oil companies, capitalism instead of admitting that each day, how we choose to spend our $ is the greatest indicator of where our values actually lie, and who is truly to blame.
Tangent: Interesting comment pointing out that one might be the toxic person from whom others should distance. What if we do not assign blame to either person but rather frame it as, The relationship between us is toxic so we should step away? Sometimes two regular people bring out the best in each other, and sometimes two regular people bring out the worst in each other.
One thing I learned a long time ago is that whenever someone says "This is what people are like" what they really mean is "this is what I am like."
Men who say "all men are pigs" is saying "I am a pig"
Women who say "Women cannot be trusted" are really saying "I cannot be trusted" (RUN!)
People protect themselves with the smokescreen of "everybody" or "people".
Every claim Ed Teach makes in his book about his fellow human beings is actually a revelation of who he is, not of who everybody else is.
And as for his claim that "No one ever asks, 'Am I the narcissist who's hurting my family?'" then he is either a liar or has had very limited social experience.
There are plenty of neurotic people, myself very much included, who think they are always the one at fault. If I read about sociopaths I worry that I am a sociopath; if I read about narcissists, I worry that I am a narcissist.
And I am constantly worried about being a bad mother, even though my son insists I gave him a very happy childhood and that he is happy with himself and his upbringing (when he says that I worry that he is just saying that to placate me because he knows I am actually a narcissist who can't handle criticism from anyone but myself).
This Ed Teach sounds like quite the creep (so does the woman who felt a bizarre need to tell the world she hates her husband - I hope he dumps her).
Anyway, thank you for reading this book so the rest of us won't have to.
What a fantastic post. Well done.
Awesome book review, made me think hard about a lot of things, felt like I was being described a few times. Lengthy read but I appreciate that when it's something good.
Not enough people will read this post. Confronting your own envy can be uncomfortable at best and terrifying at worst. In any case, I think it’s great. Thank you for digging into this and offering your perspective.
I can see why the book was so interesting to you, and this was a very well written review and I think you've hit the nail on the head with the type of narcissist Teach is. What I find worrisome is that, as you said at the beginning, so many people you know, and I'm guessing they are elites, find this man really impressive. I'm thinking that the elite group who are your peers might be much closer, on the normal end of the spectrum, of viewing everything as a transaction, though hopefully happy and not jumping through quasi intellectual hoops to justify taking joy in others misfortune.
Hot takes:
1) I'm glad I read this so I don't have to read the book. I genuinely feel you distilled anything of value I might have gotten from it without feeling robbed of time.
2) I have so much professional, anecdotal, and epidemiological experience about men with porn that I find the assertion that porn has nothing to do with addiction offensively stupid, and I'm very reluctant to just call things "stupid" without qualification. I have seen otherwise pretty reasonable, decent men's lives absolutely annihilated by porn addiction, and it doesn't take long to see that most of them are the kind of people prone to getting addicted to lots of stuff.
I've been interested in your work for a while. This was the post I thought might be worth paying the subscription fee for. You didn't disappoint.
Loved this. Any further posts on TLP (or recommendations for posts of his to read) are welcome.
Reading this was like taking a cold shower, I can only imagine (and find out) what the actual book is like
This review gives me the exact same impression of the book that Scott Alexander’s did so I’ll assume you both described it accurately. The guy sounds like a mentally ill person who can’t imagine relatively mentally healthy people even exist. It sounds like the ravings of a bitter angry failure not like anything remotely insightful.
Your review is an excellent one in that it reinforces me in thinking I never want to read this book or anything this guy ever says.
Rob, thanks for writing this. You are acting like the king’s food taster who checked for poisons by biting into the dinner. Sounds like this book took some chewing and digestion. Maybe a few tums too!
I often assume that others think the same way I do despite mountains of evidence to the contrary. Sounds like Teach has the same issue. If you are a certain type of narcissist, the book applies to you, but maybe not most people. What portion of the population is narcissistic?
That said, if your prime motivation in getting into a relationship is to make yourself feel good in the moment, maybe this kind of messed up back stabbing is your fate.
However, if your prime motivation is to bring about good for your beloved (who is not a narcissist) good feeling will follow- including the knowledge that you have actually improved the world a tiny bit.
Most likely, porn use will do nothing but hurt the process of trying to do good for your beloved. See guttermouth’s post, for example.
It seems like Teach was using a small population to describe “all people”. And it is scary to perceive people through such lens and be nice to them even if many of it is true.
I enjoyed reading this and am tempted to say I won’t read the book after this review but it’s probably more reason to.
Some interesting ideas. But I'd say "envy is the desire to deprive" is the most incorrect. Seems to be projection on the author's part. Things are much simpler than that.
““I realize that ‘the system’ is a nebulous…so I’m going to try and define it. I want an ipad, but I can’t afford the $10000 it would cost to make it in America AND generate to Apple the same nominal profit of $300/ipad, so then the ipad has to be made in China with cheaper labor. So while one can say, ‘the consumer wants an ipad,’ and ‘Apple wants $300 in profit per ipad’ the sum of those wants is ‘the system’: ‘The system wants cheap Chinese labor.’ The system doesn’t want it because it’s awesome, it wants it because it added up the wants. To be clear, the fact that ipad consumers don’t ‘want’ cheap Chinese labor is irrelevant. All of their choices want cheap Chinese labor. You can say the same about renewable energies, something that everyone says they ‘want,’ yet all of their choices sum up to the system’s want: the system wants to protect the oil industry. The CEO of ExxonMobil isn’t to blame, you are.” Interesting that you read this as a critique of capitalism and consumerism. To me, this seems more a highlighting of the hypocrisy of many of us. We CLAIM to care about buying goods made in salubrious working conditions in the First World, but when push comes to shove, we show where our priorities lie by how we spend our money. Clearly, having a “cheap” new iPad every two years, even if it’s made in China, is more important than restricting ourselves one expensive American-made tablet every decade. And then, we feel guilty, and so turn around and blame “overpaid American CEOs” who dare to use tax loopholes to legally minimize their income tax, and scream about the rich not paying their share, and go to bed feeling virtuous. We are a society of hypocrites, choosing to blame CEOs, the rich, oil companies, capitalism instead of admitting that each day, how we choose to spend our $ is the greatest indicator of where our values actually lie, and who is truly to blame.
Tangent: Interesting comment pointing out that one might be the toxic person from whom others should distance. What if we do not assign blame to either person but rather frame it as, The relationship between us is toxic so we should step away? Sometimes two regular people bring out the best in each other, and sometimes two regular people bring out the worst in each other.
I don’t know if I’m the only one to notice it
I did a quick scan and a find on page
But this whole “porn to get out of intimacy” and other similar examples remind me of Alfred Adler and his teleological theory