books:

	Why Societies Need Dissent (Oliver Wendell Holmes Lectures) Cass R. Sunstein Harvard University Press, 2005 - 256 pages average customer review:based on 7 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Some of the more interesting points were: (1) an explanation of the pressure to conform, and why this pressure is surprisingly high even among those who consider themselves independent thinkers (2) the power of being first to speak in a group and the efficacy of a firm and confident tone (3) the two types of dissenters: contrarians and disclosers; and the importance of disclosing one's opinion and reasoning (4) discussion of "groupthink" and how group opinions form based on the group's members.

I appreciated Sunstein's frequent reference to psychological studies. That made this book much more credible and useful than one where an author merely formulates theories and writes about them.

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Important and timely

A breathtaking piece of scholarship, Sunstein's book is readable, riveting and convincing. The arguments are sober and well-reasoned, providing ample citation and the address of multiple hypotheses at each stage of each argument. What emerges in the end is a powerful and compelling case for dissent not as something to be merely tolerated but as an essential high value, vital to the success of organizations and nations. At a time when this value goes largely unrecognized, Sunstein's contribution is inestimable. Never in my life have I bought multiple copies of a book to help spread a message --- until now.

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Essential Contribution to Democratic Dialog

It took me a couple of years to get to this book, but I am glad I did. Interestingly, it is dedicated to Judge Richard Posner, who has become quite a celebrity in writing and talking, from a legal point of view, about secret intelligence, in addition to his many other works.

The author's position is not completely new (see for instance Elizabeth Janeway's 1987 classic, "IMPROPER BEHAVIOR: When and How Misconduct Can be Healthy for Society", and the more standard but still seminal "The Social Construction of Reality."

The author rises beyond the law to embrace sociology, psychology, and philosophy, and in that vein, reminds me of Norman Dixon's classic work, "The Psychology of Military Incompetence."

The core of the book addresses what the author names the two influences (most people get most of their information second-hand; and the general desire for good opinion of oneself) and the three phenomena (conformity, social cascades, and group polarization).

He notes that pluralistic ignorance is dangerous; that groups and systems work better when there are incentives for sharing information openly; and that "free speech" requires BOTH legal protection AND cultural acceptance.

He discusses the superiority of the more adaptive and open democratic decision making to that of totalitarian societies, but his description of their pathologies, ideas hatched in secret and for which no opposition will be accepted, sound starkly like Dick Cheney's Standard Operating Procedure--facsist control, lies to the public with impunity, and no tolerance for flag officers, including flag officers like Tony Zinni and General Shinseki, who have the courage to say that invading Iraq is not only nuts, it will be a disaster. For deep insights into Cheney's impeachable suprression of dissent, see "One Percent Doctrine,' "VICE: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency," and "Crossing the Rubicon"--and of course the various books on impeachment (see my list).

The author concludes with a special focus on the role of Judges and Senators as dissenting voices, and I am reminded of Senator Robert Byrd's courageous and erudite opposition to the illegal war on Iraq, with his speeches available to all in book form as "Losing America: Confronting a Reckless and Arrogant Presidency").

The author concludes with a very disappointing section on education and affirmative action, and in this section, spoils an otherwise superb book by focusing on the banalities of affirmative action. Like George Bush and Hillary Clinton, he is toying with the cosmetics and avoiding the deep--the really deep--need for a complete recasting of education to fully integrate distance and self-paced online learning, multi-cultural learning, deep historical and cross-cultural understanding; a draconian Manhattan Project to improve desktop analytic tools and the need for an Information Economy Meta Language (IEML) such as Pierre Levy is creating (see his "Collective Intelligence"), as well as life-long learning, the localization of everything, and so on. I beg to emphasize this: it is the agricultural era school schedule (summer off) and the industrial era rote learning rigid structured program, that is killing the creativity of our kids while locking them up in a program that is nothing more than advanced child care with a semblance of prison population, the "club med" aspects for cheerleaders and jocks not-with-standing. Our HIGHEST national priority should be to churn education so that our kids are liberally and broadly educated and armed with all of the tools for thinking that the Central Intelligence Agency still does not have today because it too is a vestige of the Soviet era of gray desks and dumb telephones.

Thomas Jefferson had it right: "A Nation's best defense is an educated citizenry." Cass Sunstein is arguably, with Lawrence Lessig, one of the greatest lawyers of our generation, but in the final section, he plops quietly.

Never-the-less, a five star book.

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The Value of this Book is that it Shows Both the Value and Cost of Dissent

If all we needed was dissent, then we could dissent all day! The problem is that we need something: 1) the right answer, and 2) with a limited amount of information to make the decision we want it 3) quickly and cheaply. Without knowing that the author begins with that background, the title of the book might lead a potential reader into judging that the author was a Bob Dylan wannabe.
The author makes a number of useful observations while dealing with the manifest observation of the most casual observer that the dissenter never profits from his dissent. In other words, dissent is costly from several points of view, so the question is: When is it worth it--if ever?

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Important Work

This book gathers together and puts a philosophical/political thoery frame on a range of findings in social science about conformity, information gathering, groupthink, fanaticism, and dissent. The lesson is that a free society needs to encourage, and maybe reward, dissent. If you're familiar with other books the author has published recently (Republic.com, Designing Democracy), the philosophical story and institutional proposals will be familiar. But the survey of the social scientific findings is worth the price of the book.


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