Talk Back

[galactic_dev]

By Thomas Lewis, M.D., Fari Amini, M.D., and Richard Lannon, M.D.

This book completely overpromised and underdelivered. Its introduction promised an examination of love that leveraged the myths and poetries of the past with our modern understanding of neuroscience. If only it had done that.

Still, the first half of the book was good. I learned about the reptilian hindbrain, the limbic brain (which started with mammals), and the neocortex (which makes humans great with abstraction and whatnot). The book also thoroughly destroyed most of the ideas behind Freudian psychology and Dr. Spock, although these seem like straw men from my perspective.

The real theme of the book is that our limbic systems are critical to being able to love and relate, and that they are shaped interpersonally, especially in early life. No man is an island. (I guess no woman is an island either, but this book, published in 2000, used totally sexist language, referring to all babies/children/unknown people as 'he'.)

Unfortunately, the second half of the book just kept repeating how important our limbic brains and its needs are, but wasted a hundred pages that could have been better spent giving evidence on what makes it function better more specifically than caring parenting.

The authors' conviction that we live in an unhealthy society that prioritizes intellect over emotion is not without merit, but their proposals were so vague as to be nearly useless. (Sure, we should spend more time with each other and with our children. Can you tell me anything more beyond just romanticizing the past?)

I was carried along in this book by passionate writing backed by incredibly rich vocabulary, which I enjoyed, but which was completely unnecessary to the message of the book.

Interesting, but not recommended to anyone already familiar with the Rush album Hemispheres.

[shaw]