Pun Salad

The author, Andrew Heaton, was previously best known to me as a writer/performer in numerous amusing videos at Reason. (Geeky example here, many more here.) So I was expecting a risible explication of why (specifically) politics is so rife with pointless contentiousness and other dysfunction.

I got that risibility. For example, Kindle's search feature reports 17 occurrences of "minotaur", 8 of "Gorn". Each drawing a smile from this reader.

But I also got a lot of surprising insights, for example:

Meanwhile, alt-right trolls perform a variant of virtue signaling called “unvirtue signaling,” where they flout the social norms and manners of pearl-clutching liberals. Saying terms that are offensive to or forbidden by the politically correct displays both contempt for the enemy tribe as well as bravery in combating it. Trolls one-up each other on message boards by seeing who will say the most offensive thing, thereby ratcheting up perceived boldness and status among their peers.

Reader, this book came out last year. I was not expecting Andrew to nail so precisely the headlines from only a couple weeks ago: "‘I love Hitler’: Leaked messages expose Young Republicans’ racist chat". (I commented here.)

I was (generally) not expecting Andrew's relative seriousness in exploring his topic. Yes, there's some jokiness, but it turns out that his research and insight is both wide and deep. Tribalism is rooted in humanity's long-ago cultural evolution in the Horn of Africa. And while it might be "dumb", it's not all bad: it gives us a sense of belonging, allows us to work for common goals, and (eventually) got us to modernity.

Although not without a lot of violence and strife. Still…

I should mention that the book is (um) lightly edited; I caught a number of typos and misspellings (e.g., "the story of Cain and Able" on page 27.) Also some of his wry observations fall flat; I attribute this to his stand-up comic sideline. What works on the stage might not work on the page. And vice versa.

But to repeat: the book is very readable and insightful.