I received an arc of this title from NetGalley for an honest review. With the country being divided as it is I have been so annoyed with politics as of late and thought that this might help me get over this. While I liked how the author presented the information, I ended up having more questions then answers which I found a bit annoying.

I’m a sucker for books about persuasion, motivation, and thinking. Stop Being Reasonable by Eleanor Gordon-Smith was a nice addition to the repertoire. The arguments in the book really speak to what we’re seeing in the political climate and the power of emotions over facts.

Society expects that people will use logic and reason to sway others to change their mind. However, Stop Being Reasonable argues that reason doesn’t work, which is why the country is so divided.

Using six true stories, the author anecdotally tries to prove what changes minds. The stories encompass catcalling, cults, individuality, memory, and revealed secrets.

The stories were interesting. However, I don’t believe the author proved her point that reason should be discarded. In fact, in the conclusion, Stop Being Reasonable admits that all she found was more questions. Unfortunately, I can’t give this rather dark “we will never get along” book more than 2 stars.

Thanks to PublicAffairs, Perseus Books and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for my honest review.

When is the last time you changed someone's mind through a conversation? Or had your mind changed?

We’re usually told to keep listening and keep talking it out when we disagree. And sometimes that works. Sometimes it changes someone’s mind when they hear a new bit of evidence. Or when they hear a backstory they’d previously missed.

But often, new information does NOT change anyone’s mind. We find ways to get around it, we dig in to our original position, insisting (at least in our heads) that our opinions and beliefs are right; theirs are wrong.

It’s not rational. But it’s reality.

Author Eleanor Gordon-Smith shares in this book about her conversations with men in Australia who catcalled women. Despite showing statistics to the men that most women hated having sexual innuendos shouted at them from the street, and that it was an ineffective strategy for picking up women, most men continued to believe that women really loved the public remarks from strangers about their bodies.

After trying in vain to convince them otherwise, this finally dawned on Gordon-Smith:

“I finally understood what had happened. Words do not work in the same way for everyone. And when words are the currency of rational debate, rational debate does not work the same way for everyone, either.”

Gordon-Smith doesn’t present antidotes in her book like I wanted her to. Probably because there aren’t any magic answers. Barring a God-miracle, there aren’t any guaranteed, sure-fire methods to change minds, either our own or others. We each base our opinions on our individual mix of emotion and memory and interpretations.

“Anyone who says they have a persuasive strategy that will change a person’s mind without first knowing their circumstances or the genealogy of their beliefs is either lying or grievously mistaken.”

But Gordon-Smith does offer in her book six interesting case studies, some stories which show people do change their minds (a cult follower), and some in which they don’t (the catcallers).

In each case, what is “reasonable” ends up as a matter of perspective. And that is our starting point.

Can we ever change each other’s minds? Maybe. But don’t depend on it.

My thanks to Net Galley for the review copy of this book.

Weirdly boring. I thought that the book had a fantastic and intriguing title, but nothing inside grabbed my interest. I have a degree in psychology so I love reading psychology books.

This one felt really flat for me, and I had such high hopes for it.

Eleanor Gordon-Smith’s “Stop Being Reasonable” is a fascinating inquiry into the mind; particularly why and how we come to change our beliefs. Eleanor’s finely-crafted stories from other’s mind-altering adventures, demonstrate the difficulty and possibility of persuasion. Through those stories we can find ourselves in them and discover thought-provoking principles for how we can change our own mind and how we may persuade others. A worthy read indeed!

STOP BEING REASONABLE is a dense little book filled with philosophical musings on varied subjects such as why guys catcall, how someone escaped a cult, and if a girl is telling the truth about being abused by her parents. Each chapter starts with a couple of lines from philosophy that sets the tone for the case study, such as this one from Blaise Pascal: People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof but on the basis of what they find attractive.
Those who have a background in philosophy will enjoy this book for the anecdotes that illustrate various ways of thinking. My experience with philosophy is minimal, so I am sure a great deal of the material is going over my head. The stories about the people were mildly interesting, just not wholly captivating for me. Perhaps I expected different handling of the subject. This does not detract from the writing itself, just a caveat to potential readers that this is a heavier read than normal.
The author has a background in debate as well, and her skills are apparent in the way she writes and presents her facts. A common theme to all the stories is: examine closely what you expect to be true, for things are not what they seem to be.

I must admit I had a hard time getting into this book at first. It just seemed to me that the author devoted far too much time to the issue of catcalling (I deducted one star for precisely this). Just as I was going to give up on this book, I found myself in a waiting room, so I decided to read on. I am glad I did! I soon found myself engrossed in the engaging narratives of the man who suddenly broke free of a cult he had been born into and happily living in and the reality-show contestant who experienced an unexpected change of perspective which lead him to lead a completely different life on another continent. Each story in the book has a common theme: What we think of as reasonable is all a matter of perspective. “Reasonable” is based on our existing concept of reality, which is usually constructed for us by those around us or via our own inner dialogue of personal expectations. Persuasion based on logic and reason subsequently falls short because how we make-up our minds or change our minds often happens on a personal and sometimes irrational level. This is an interesting book of case studies.