Beck makes some good points about today's divisions in America, but this book was written in 2018 & nothing has changed, despite his advice. As a matter of fact, the division has only gotten worse.

And please, Glenn Beck, hire a better proof reader for future books, as there were way too many typos!

This 379 page book should have been closer to 50 or 100 pgs. The point is a decent one: try to find common ground, don’t be an outraged reactionary. I think Mr. Beck should look in the mirror a little bit harder given the tone of his book. He also touches on policy and the future, but it was a little too Popsci/pop psych to be actually useful.

This book is a combo of three overarching topics, our outrage, how AI will change our way of life, and what changes we as individuals can make to improve things. It is a lot to digest, and I feel as though I missed a lot listening to the audiobook. That being said, Beck's narration is very enjoyable.

This is a much needed book that every American should read. It's sad that so many Americans get so outraged with politics and that we have let politics influence our relationships so much. Using the AA's 12 step program, Glenn walks us through how to overcome the addictive nature of outrage.

If you enjoy listening to Glenn's radio program, you will enjoy this audiobook version as it is read by Glenn himself.

The longer I live, the more convinced I am that looking at issues from every side just makes sense. Few other commentators have managed the kind of polarizing effect that Glenn Beck has achieved in recent years. What was it about the man that created such sharp divisions. Does anyone listen to him and merely shrug, saying, “well, ok, that’s his perspective, time to live and let live?” Or are we more inclined to revile the man for his politics and the sometimes-shrill nature of his delivery?

Beck addresses his polarizing behaviors in his most recent book, and I came away with a deeper understanding of the journeys and evolutions all of us go through as we age. None of us are who we were perhaps even as recently as five years ago. If we’re honest, we can point to ways in which a cherished belief of even a few years ago suddenly takes on a different shape or color; sometimes, we discard those cherished beliefs altogether.

This is Beck’s journey. He straightforwardly apologizes for fanning the flames of outrage. And while he stands opposed to abortion and gun control, he seems far more intent these days on building bridges to those who disagree with him, not so much to convert them to his certainty but to better understand them and see whether some kind of middle ground can be reached.

Beck contends here that the nation’s only hope is to find those things in common that once held us together—particularly the Bill of Rights.

There is much here that touched me. He writes here with real candor of his mother’s suicide and his own very near success at repeating her performance. He writes about friends he has won and lost in his efforts to build bridges wherever possible. He includes information here about his conversion to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and what an initially strange experience that was. I laughed out loud through that portion of the book; I could see the kind of people he described. But he also talks of the home he found with that group, and his ongoing search for greater truth.

Beck postulates that the nation is addicted to anger and hate, and writing from the point of view of a recovering alcoholic, he insists the nation needs an intervention. He points out ways in which all of us are eager to point a judgmental finger at the opposite side, and he admits to have played a part in that process. Beck emphasizes that this isn’t about political parties. He says the problem is everyone’s problem, not a Democratic or Republican problem, and he says thinking like addicts in need of change will help.

He devotes each chapter to the steps in a 12-step program and explains how using those steps can bring us all closer together.

He provides examples here of Americans who have gone deep and learned to forgive. He warns against the kind of certitude that forces out every other perspective but the one in which you’ve convinced you’re right. He focuses on the value of believing in something larger than self, and he extols humility and gratitude.

This is not some kind of deathbed conversion to a more enlightened way of thinking. If you found Beck strident and boisterous in years past, you may still find this book falls into that. I was touched by the journey, and I came away a little surprised that he would be so candid and public about his personal flaws and shortcomings.
I find his sometimes hyperbolic thoughts on how technology will change us all to be a bit amusing. Maybe he’s right, but I’m a little less inclined to slurp that soup until it cools a bit.

I guess if I were in a frame of mind that said, “I’m going to read this and keep track of all the inconsistencies and gotcha statements,” I’d find this book a chore and unworthy of my time. If I adopt the author’s perspective that I need an intervention, I might read this. Beck aptly points out that our addictions to Facebook likes and Twitter retweets contribute to a division that has the potential to destroy the nation. I’m not entirely convinced he’s wrong.

I went into this with a lot of trepidation. Is it going to be just another rehash of Beck’s politics? I could get that pretty much every day. I wanted this to be something different, and while he doesn’t switch sides, he accepts responsibility for his part in the divisions among us, and that seems hard to do. He also offers thoughtful suggestions on steps we can take as individuals to lower the volume and increase our ability to simply listen and respect the difference of those around us rather than forcibly shout them down. Instead of reading this to gain amunition with which to punch back, I read it to learn more about the evolutoin of one individual and to ponder his thoughts on how we reconnect.

Part of the narration is a bit hyper-dramatic. He gets pretty out there in a paragraph or two. You can almost visualize wild gestures as he reads. It gets a bit whispery and funky in a spot or two, but on balance, it’s a highly listenable narration.

NLS:
Addicted to outrage: how thinking like a recovering addict can heal the country DB92907
Beck, Glenn. Reading time: 15 hours, 32 minutes.
Read by Glenn Beck.

Social Sciences
Government and Politics
Bestsellers

The author of Miracles and Massacres (DB 77942) discusses America's growing social and political division and penchant for cultural anger. Frames this trend as an addiction and proposes a solution similar to traditional twelve-step programs. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. Bestseller. 2018.

While this book is a little over long, the message is absolutely essential. We need to learn to see each other as human beings first. I hope many will take the time to read this important book on breaking the grip of outrage and start making compassion and action our drivers.

The last 20% or so of this book is pretty good. Beck makes an impassioned argument for reaching across the aisle and he offers some practical advice for how to do so, using addiction and AA as a metaphorical framework. I disagree with a lot of his base assumptions and feel like he leans too hard on his own pop philosophy, but those are relatively minor things in the long run. He admits that he built his career stoking outrage, comes dangerously close to actually apologizing for that, and his basic thesis of be-less-of-an-asshole-to-people-you-disagree-with is thoughtful, well-reasoned, and feels like it's coming from a place of honesty and good intentions.

Someone should really share it with whoever wrote the first 80% of this book.

It's. Just. Exhausting. I started this thing in November, for frick's sake. I had to take multiple breaks throughout because it just weighs down on the soul to be constantly called a moron. If Beck's main thesis is that he and his followers should try to find common ground with progressives, maybe he shouldn't spend quite so much time gaslighting progressives? The tenor of most of this book is "we need to get along and it'd be easier if Democrats weren't so wrong about everything!" There's some token both-sidesism, but he can't seem to help falling back on snarky asides and what I assume are his normal fan-favorite talking points. I mean, he brings up Jeremiah Wright--a man who was only vaguely relevant a decade ago--something like three or four times. And despite his insistence that his readers/listeners should be trying to find common ground with the opposition party, he makes no attempt to do that himself. He spares no amount of ink reaffirming his personal beliefs and talking about how eager he is to engage with other people, but he spends zero time at all actually exploring or inquiring about other people's.

Which speaks to Beck's general lack of self-awareness. Towards the end--you know, the good part--of the book he circles back on the idea that character matters and is important and he specifically calls out Donald Trump. He also has a section early on wherein he says "sure, Trump is a demagogue, but what about all the GOOD he's done?" (I'm paraphrasing, but "demagogue" was HIS word, not mine.) If character matters, and you really believe that, then demagoguery should be a bigger concern... right? He lambasts progressives for never wanting to let go of the evils of America's past, and three chapters later says that one of the problems with Americans is that they're too willing to let go of the evils of America's past. He takes great umbrage that people called his former employer "Faux" News, but he himself describes Roger Ailes as having "a passion for destroying the Democratic Party" and admits that while he was working there, Ailes was spying on him! It's wildly inconsistent, and in a section that I took rather personally, he offers an abridged primer on Carl Sagan's "baloney detector" and specifically cites "inconsistency" as a sign that a what you're hearing might not be true. Gah! I mean... Why even bring up Sagan at all if you're not going to apply that lens to your own arguments?

The answer, of course, is that Beck doesn't make arguments. He does what logicians refer to as the "Gish Gallop" where you just strew the bullshit together faster than a dissenting brain can process it. Beck tends to talk AROUND subjects rather than ABOUT them, loosely tying things together rather than exploring them. I assume this affect comes from primarily working in radio, where you have to generate hours and hours of content that has to be accessible to new listeners but still novel to older ones. But Beck takes this to a bizarre extreme. Just consider this section, which I'm paraphrasing:

You buy a self-driving car that takes you to work and then you send it off to work as an uber. Let's say it gets into an accident. Whose fault would the accident be? Who should own the insurance? Should the car therefore have its own insurance that it pays for out of the money it makes while working as an uber? Should it be allowed to play the stock market? If it can invest, could it be taxed? If it can be taxed, does that mean it's alive, and therefore should be able to demand representation? Should it be allowed to vote?

There are a good half dozen extremely complex topics there that are being completely glossed over, and in service of what? The point he arrives at is that these are things we need to be talking about. You know what? I agree! Maybe, since you brought them up, you should actually talk about them!

This disjointed non-sequitur argumentation extends to the entire book. There is no organization to the thoughts on display. Which astounds me, because if you're using the twelve steps as a framing device, grouping topics by "step" is a gimme. But no, topics are raised, dropped, and circled back on haphazardly, reading like a series of prolonged, disconnected rants. He rarely cites sources, and when he does drop a name or mention a book, it's usually in reference to the general topic he's discussing rather than the specific facts he presenting. The point is to reinforce his bona fides, not to give a curious reader somewhere further to go.

Because at the end of the day Beck's putting on a show here--far more interested in the theatrics than the substance. Sometimes this is quite entertaining. At one point he reinterprets the Declaration Of Independence as a Dear John letter to King George, and it's pretty damned clever. There's a huge aside about Baskin Robbins that pops up in the middle of a sentence. While it didn't really add anything to what he was saying, it was a bizarrely compelling bit of performance art. But those are the exceptions. Most of the theatrics are just snarky asides and "funny" voices, if you decide to go the audio route.

And it's all just so tiring. Unless you already agree with him, in which case it's probably a fun ride with a sobering conclusion. Well, I'm sorry, but no thanks. You don't get to spend thirty chapters telling "liberal jokes" and then another seven or so admonishing people for making fun of liberals. I probably shouldn't be surprised--it's right there on the cover art! This is a book ostensibly about the troubles of addiction, and there's a smiling Glenn Beck extending a hand to offer you a big old pile of pills.