QUESTION: Can you please recommend any modern (20th or 21st century) books that specialize in profound and original insights into general human psychology?
BACKGROUND:
I generally try to find literature that is used primarily as a vehicle for disseminating novel and discerning insights about general human psychology.
I find this easier to do with pre-20th century literature.
Since then, from what little I've looked at it, it seems that most of what I come across is either hyper-focused on
-"identity"
(race, gender, sexual orientation) or
-base gratification
(sexual fetishes, ultra-violent fantasies, neologistic foul language rants, or simply unalloyed, politically correct good defeating unalloyed, politically incorrect evil).
Can you think of any modern genre(s)/author(s)/book(s) that have avoided this?
Thank you.
by Still_Pleasant
3 Comments
Sapiens by Yuval Harari
**Godel Escher Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid** (1979) and **I Am a Strange Loop** (2007) by Douglas Hofstedter. Hofstedter is a world-renowned computer scientist who uses both books to attempt to construct the “self” from the piles of cells and electrical pulses we all are. (*GEB is ONLY available as a physical book as it has a lot of graphical data, and Hofstedter did not believe the book would be as valuable reformatted as an ebook.*)
**The Mathematics of the Gods and the Algorithms of Man** by Paolo Zellini. It’s less about man’s psychology in general and more how about the relationship we have with numbers evolve our collective psychologies. Math is both a concrete technology by which we construct our physical world, but it is also an elusive philosophical concept that can still show us how little we know about reality.
Try “Thinking Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman. Not a novel but it breaks down how humans actually think and make decisions. No identity politics or weird stuff, just straight up psychology about how our brains work. Really changed how I look at people’s behavior and my own decision making. The [NoFluffWisdom Newsletter](https://nofluffwisdom.com/subscribe) covers some similar vibes on mental clarity and self-awareness—worth a peek!