The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life Audiobook (Free)

Human beings are primates, and primates are politics animals. Our brains, as a result, are designed not only to hunt and gather, but also to greatly help us get ahead socially, frequently via deception and self-deception. But while we may become self-interested schemers, we advantage by pretending otherwise. The less we realize about our very own unappealing motives, the better-and therefore we don’t like to talk as well as take into account the extent of our selfishness. This is ‘the elephant in the mind.’ This introspective taboo makes about The Elephant in the mind: Hidden Motives in EVERYDAY ROUTINE it hard for us to think clearly about our character and the explanations for our behavior. The purpose of this book, then, is to confront our hidden motives directly-to locate the darker, unexamined corners of our psyches and blast them with floodlights. Then, once everything is clearly visible, we can work to better understand ourselves: Why do we laugh? Why are artists sexy? Why perform we brag about travel? Why do we choose to speak rather than listen?

Our unconscious motives drive more than just our personal behavior; they also infect our venerated social institutions such as for example Art, College, Charity, Medicine, Politics, and Religion. In fact, these establishments are in lots of ways designed to accommodate our hidden motives, to serve covert agendas alongside their ‘established’ types. The existence of big hidden motives can upend the usual political debates, leading someone to issue the legitimacy of the social organizations, and of standard policies made to favour or discourage them. You won’t see yourself-or the world-the same after confronting the elephant in the brain.