Interdisciplinary Book and Film Reviews

STUMBLING ON HAPPINESS      by Daniel Gilbert Reviewed by   Geoffrey W. Sutton Harvard psychology professor, Daniel Gilbert , will make you laugh as he weaves witticisms and humorous stories into an entertaining account of scientific research as we join him in Stumbling on Happiness . Essentially, Gilbert argues in chapter one, that we spend much of our time planning and executing unsuccessful strategies to attain an elusive state of happiness. In six sections, we learn why such a quest often proves beyond our grasp. In part one, Gilbert provides a brief overview of the philosophical foundations of the problem of subjective analysis of happiness. He gradually leads us to an operational definition by illustrating how common human experiences can deliver shared feelings of happiness. However, he illustrates how the elusive and subjective aspect of happiness can produce self-deception by demonstrating how the human brain misperceives visual phenomena and similarly misperceives the im

WHITE FRAGILITY:  Why It’s So Hard for White People  to Talk About Racism      By Robin DiAngelo     Reviewed by        Geoffrey W. Sutton   White Fragility is a best seller with a surge in interest during this 2020 springtime of protests against racism. The concept, white fragility , is now a part of everyday discourse—at least among those who endorse the concept. Even if you disagree with most or all of DiAngelo’s ideas, I think it worth reading or listening to if you live in, or are part of, the world where white people are, or were, oppressive in their actions toward black people. I listened to the AUDIBLE version on a trial.   The path to white fragility in America begins a few centuries ago. DiAngelo does not dwell on the past but draws back the curtain on the historic wasteland so we have a context.   “Claiming that the past was socially better than the present is also a hallmark of white supremacy. Consider any period in the past from the perspective of people