Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt
Written by Arthur C. Brooks
Narrated by Will Damron
4.5/5
()
About this audiobook
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.
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.
Related to Love Your Enemies
Related audiobooks
Arthur Brooks On Why We Hate Our Political Enemies — And How To Stop Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Way Out: How to Overcome Toxic Polarization Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Myth of Left and Right: How the Political Spectrum Misleads and Harms America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multiparty Democracy in America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Death of Politics: How to Heal Our Frayed Republic After Trump Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Our Own Worst Enemy: The Assault from within on Modern Democracy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hate Inc.: Why Today's Media Makes Us Despise One Another Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Identity Crisis: The 2016 Presidential Campaign and the Battle for the Meaning of America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5America's Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It's Up to Us: Ten Little Ways We Can Bring About Big Change Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Road to Freedom: How to Win the Fight for Free Enterprise Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life: An Unexpected Guide to Human Nature and Happiness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5David Brooks: On Character Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Future Tense: Why Anxiety Is Good for You (Even Though It Feels Bad) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Them: Why We Hate Each Other--and How to Heal Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Happiness Curve: Why Life Gets Better After 50 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Vanishing American Adult: Our Coming-of-Age Crisis--and How to Rebuild a Culture of Self-Reliance Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5David Brooks On Emerging From Loneliness To Find ‘Moral Renewal’ Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Complacent Class: The Self-Defeating Quest for the American Dream Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Road to Character Bundle, 2 in 1 Bundle Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Why We're Polarized Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nudge: The Final Edition: Improving Decisions About Money, Health, And The Environment Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Political Ideologies For You
While Time Remains: A North Korean Girl's Search for Freedom in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Blackout: How Black America Can Make Its Second Escape from the Democrat Plantation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Marriage Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Capitalist Punishment: How Wall Street Is Using Your Money to Create a Country You Didn't Vote For Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Democrat Party Hates America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Courage to Be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The MAGA Diaries: My Surreal Adventures Inside the Right-Wing (And How I Got Out) Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5You Will Own Nothing: Your War with a New Financial World Order and How to Fight Back Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Trust the Plan: The Rise of QAnon and the Conspiracy That Unhinged America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Vision of the Anointed: Self-congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fascism: A Warning Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jewish Space Lasers: The Rothschilds and 200 Years of Conspiracy Theories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unwoke: How to Defeat Cultural Marxism in America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5America's Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Recessional: The Death of Free Speech and the Cost of a Free Lunch Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Communist Manifesto (Unabridged) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Puppeteers: The People Who Control the People Who Control America Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Emergent Strategy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Is Reality Optional?: And Other Essays Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Anti-Communist Manifesto Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Why We're Polarized Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Love Your Enemies
62 ratings7 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The world needs more books like this. Republican, Democratic, Patriot, Progressive, whatever your thing....Read This Book.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Thoughtful discussion of connecting positively with those that believe differently than you.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Nothing earth shattering here. All stuff we should know and be doing.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A well balanced, honest, and productive conversation starter. I'm recommending this book to all of my right and left friends.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5As far as I’m concerned this should be considered obvious, common-sense human decency. But obviously it isn’t. Well written, I think a bit better than Van Jones’ “Beyond the Messy Truth” which I’d put in exactly the same category. But both books would be perfectly understandable to a high school student, I think - I’d like to read something in this vein that was just a bit deeper.
All that being said, I sure wish I lived in a world where a greater percentage of politicians, pundits, and other leaders subscribed to the ideas in these books. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Arthur Brooks writes a much-needed and accessible book for the individual seeking to be part of the solution to the canyons of mutual disregard that divide us, canyons widened by and for the powerful in media, politics, and anger.
I recommend it heartily. Brooks is a business conservative, a religious man, a humanist, and a rebel. In sum, he is a man in full who takes his own medicine.
He offers the following:
How each person can help make national healing happen:
1. Find a friendship with someone you can have productive, respectful disagreements.
2. “Don’t attack or insult. Don’t even try to win.”
3. “Never assume the motives of another person.”
4. “Use your values as a gift, not a weapon.”
P. 185-199
Five rules to subvert the culture of contempt:
1. ”Stand up to the Man. Refuse to be used by the powerful.... [B]e the person who gently defends those who aren’t represented, even if you disagree with them.”
2. “Escape the bubble. Go where you’re not invited, and say things people don’t expect.” Seek common ground. Tell your story.
3. “Say no to contempt. Treat others with love and respect, even when it’s difficult.”
4. “Disagree better. Be part of a healthy competition of ideas.”
5. “Tune out: Disconnect more from the unproductive debates....Obliterate your silos by listening, reading, and watching media on the ‘other side.’ Get rid of your curated social media feeds....Resolve to pay attention to ideas, not just politics.” P. 201-212 - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This message can't get out there enough. If there is one idea with which the whole of my being resonates, it is that compassion and understanding are the way forward from the current unspeakable mess that we have lately made of this country, which is the shame of my generation.Brooks' message has a lot in common with that of my boyfriend* Jonathan Haidt, of THE RIGHTEOUS MIND and THE CODDLING OF THE AMERICAN MIND. In fact he quotes and draws on Haidt's words and research. I recommend the above as companion volumes, particularly RIGHTEOUS MIND.I will be looking out for Brooks' column in the Washington Post from now on.* Jonathan Haidt is not actually my boyfriend. I use this term whenever I am madly in love with a particular author's work.