Mental Immunity

Infectious Ideas, Mind-Parasites, and the Search for a Better Way to Think

By: Andy Norman

Narrated by: Charles Constant

Why do people reject science and believe online conspiracy theories? How are people radicalized online and go on to commit acts of violence? Why is our society so politically polarized?

Astonishingly irrational ideas are spreading. Covid denial persists in the face of overwhelming evidence. Anti-vaxxers compromise public health. Conspiracy thinking hijacks minds and incites mob violence. Toxic partisanship is cleaving nations, and climate denial has pushed our planet to the brink. Meanwhile, American Nazis march openly in the streets, and Flat Earth theory is back. What the heck is going on? Why is all this happening, and why now? More important, what can we do about it?

In Mental Immunity, Andy Norman shows that these phenomena share a root cause. We live in a time when the so-called “right to your opinion” is thought to trump our responsibilities. The resulting ethos effectively compromises mental immune systems, allowing “mind parasites” to overrun them. Conspiracy theories, evidence-defying ideologies, garden-variety bad ideas: these are all species of mind parasite, and each of them employs clever strategies to circumvent mental immune systems. In fact, some of them compromise cultural immune systems - the things societies do to prevent bad ideas from spreading. Norman shows why all of this is more than mere analogy: minds and cultures really do have immune systems, and they really can break down. Fortunately, they can also be built up: strengthened against ideological corruption. He calls for a rigorous science of mental immune health - what he calls “cognitive immunology” - and explains how it could revolutionize our capacity for critical thinking.

Hailed as “a feast for thought,” Mental Immunity melds cutting-edge work in science and philosophy into an “astonishingly enlightening and productive” solution to the signature problem of our age. A practical guide to spotting and removing bad ideas, a stirring call to transcend our petty tribalisms, and a serious bid to bring humanity to its senses.

©2021 Andrew Norman (P)2021 HarperCollins Publishers

Disappointing

The title sounded promising. The attacks and use of political examples make it lose credibility and appear more like an attempt to gain popularity.

Awesome

I am listening to this again and look forward to playing the reasoning game with friends and family.

I was hoping for an in depth psychological profile

I was hoping for an in depth psychological profile to q anon and Donald Trump's supporters, what exactly is wrong with them, why they do the things that they do, are they evil? Do they have a Mental Disorder? Do they know that they're wrong? Are they just trolling us in real life? Is it greed? Is it racism? I was hoping he had talked to people who either believe in Q ANON and/ or had voted for Trump or both. But they are hardly mentioned. After doing years of research on my own, this book basically just tells me the things that I already know. There's not too much new information, and if you're already an aware person who has done shadow work, has empathy and compassion or asks yourself why you believe or why do the things that you do, you are willing to take a new evidence and change your mind when new evidence found is presented then you probably don't need to read this book. Unfortunately the people that do need to listen to it and learn how to think critically and listen to science/facts probably will never listen to this book. It's like an alcoholic they can't get help until they admit that they have a problem. Ultimately those who have voted for Trump or Q ANON will continue to believe the lies and live in their own altered reality, so we must start with the children. We need to implement critical thinking into schools, using discernment, basically changing the entire model of education that's telling you what is true, and what you need to believe. We need to teach people how to access information, discern what is true/what is real, what is verifiable, and then make judgements as to what is needed. Teaching empathy, sociology, humanities getting in touch with nature, there's so many things that could fix these problems, but until people are willing to make the changes and do the work ourselves in order to be the change we wish to see, many will continue to believe misinformation. Hopefully social media sites will be regulated more and the spread lies/misinformation will be reduced. I returned this book because it offered me no new information, and it's very repetitive, it probably could have been cut down a couple chapters if he took out what he repeated multiple times.

Deceptively Obvious

Brilliant information and rationally argued on the logic; but glaringly unapplied by the Author. The obvious progressive liberal views overflow and pollute the very principles presented.

Helpful Ideas but very repetitive

There are good and useful ideas in this book. However, it is extremely repetitive and he often states his political opinions in ways that imply they are not in any way up for debate.

Tremendous, absolutely tremendous!

I have been in academics much of my career, a significant part in hard-core research. I so wished I had discovered Dr. Norman work at a much younger age. I so enjoy the meticulous way Dr. Norman walked through the history of decision-making and leading us to understand how to use the various segments in a productive way. The entire book is tremendous, especially the last chapter and appendix. I have now read parts of the book twice and listen to it and it will stay on my devices for sometime as I continue to review and study. I strongly encourage anyone who has a vent towards critical, thinking to make this work, a high priority. And if they teach students to include parts, if not all of this work, as they teach exploration of the truth through science and philosophy.

Narrator and punctuation

This book is great; really interesting and engaging. I found myself pausing what was just said to process the idea. So what is my problem? The narrator has a nasty habit of running over full stops. That sounds petty - I'm sorry. Full stops (periods) are an important part of writing, speech, storytelling and yes, narration. The brilliant work that Andy Norman has done writing this book is severely hampered by this rookie mistake. Following is my review with the punctuation removed...

This book is great really interesting and engaging I found myself pausing what was just said to process the idea so what is my problem the narrator has a nasty habit of running over full stops that sounds petty I'm sorry full stops (periods) are an important part of writing speech storytelling and yes narration the brilliant work that Andy Norman has done writing this book is severely hampered by this rookie mistake following is my review with the punctuation removed

Annoying right?

This book has opened my mind to the "parasites".

Not disappointed! Just when I thought I had my own "thought police" identified and under control I learn how to further improve my thought process. Andy Norman has put forth a road map that will help you understand who is shaking our jar. I'm learning to be more compassionate and open minded to ideas that traditionally have not been in my wheelhouse. He has taught me how to be cognizant of "mental parasites" that work their way in and block new ideas that might contradict my current narrative. The book carefully navigates through learning about new facts and how to not let your ideas identify who you are.

I highly recommend this read.

Thanks,

Dan V.

I really enjoyed this book!

This was a great listen. The narration is a bit stodgy and disengaged, but I got used to him after a couple chapters. I always prefer when the author narrates their own book. They know which parts to emphasize, and (as another commenter noted) which parts need a full stop.

There are several reviews that say the book is biased against the American political right wing. But in the publisher's notes, Harper Audio tells us up front which ideas are examined in the book:

Covid denial
Anti-vaxxers
Conspiracy theories
Climate change denial
A return of Nazism
A return of flat earth theory

It just so happens the above listed ideas exist 98% of the time in the minds of political Conservatives. The book is about why people believe things that are contrary to logic or evidence and the truth is, these ARE bad ideas - because they are contrary to logic and evidence. The truth is, the American political right wing IS more infected with bad ideas than the left is. That doesn't mean there are NO bad ideas on the left; there certainly are. Just not enough to write a whole book about.

I appreciate the fact that the author does NOT launch into a false equivalence exercise where he tries to "drum up" some bad ideas on the left just to make people feel like he's making an evenly-weighted argument. Such an exercise would lack scientific integrity. Science should observe and report. Not 'observe, report and make an evenly-weighted argument so that people feel comfortable about what they already tell themselves'. There's too much of that going on in the media, and also that isn't the point of empirical research.

Vital concepts and practices which should be taugh

Vital concepts and practices which should be taugh from elementary through college curriculum. Sometimes thick wirh jargon the author does an excellent job explaining.