Book Review: The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis

I am afraid to say that I would probably not rate The Undoing Project very high. I know it details the life of a Nobel prize winner and I should not be critical of something that I know so little about, but here goes anyway.

There appears to be one huge flaw that rides throughout the volume. There seems to be no acknowledgement of the vast differences that exists among people. Tversky and Kahneman keep talking about how the “people” would evaluate, decide and react. And who are these “people”? The average person in a conglomerate of people no doubt. Though these results may apply to group of people (assuming that you have a statistically correct sample), when considering individual actions, the results can be hopelessly flawed, since they do not distinguish among people who may be neurotic, bi-polar, psychotic, schizophrenic – or just plainly very confident persons, or on the other hand very dependent individuals.

Along comes a world class narcissist like Donald Trump. Just try to use these brilliant psychological techniques on him. I realize that I am hearkening back to more traditional psychology when these individual factors are considered in depth. So be it. I think the traditional approach is more accurate than this present analysis in describing individual behaviour. In many cases what we often need to predict and understand is individual behaviour, not just averaged group behaviour.

More critiques:

- The book is more a review of the nature of the two partner’s relationship than about their joint ideas.

-Profs like to play with ideas such as these two have done. Then the rude shock of reality (i.e. Yom Kipper war) comes along and blows their theoretical ideas to bits. Yes, other profs and academic associations may think that their ideas are brilliant, but my guess is that in the real world these abstruse intellectual tidbits will not help us as much as it is assumed. I personally found the link between their theoretical concepts and the resulting practical applications to be a bit strained.

So much for my rant on the book. If you really liked the book, do write and tell me why. Perhaps you will be able to straighten me out.

Rebellious Seeker,

Ottawa,

January 2017