I do not like The Gift of Fear.

[snarp]

The sensory/cognitive processes which it considers unconscious and instinctive are mostly conscious and learned for me, because, y'know. My sensory shit can’t run reliably on autopilot, because that part of my brain is fucked up.

And so far - admittedly I’m only like 1/3 through - the book kind of assumes that internalized racism/ableism/etc-etc do not exist, and thus your “gut instincts” about whether a person is trustworthy will never be affected by the person’s ethnicity/wheelchair/etc-etc.

Does the guy ever back up on that? I am about to stop reading.

Comments

[boxofdelights]

Not in this book he doesn't. I have heard that he accepted criticism on that subject (and on the message that if your partner hits you and you stay, you are complicit) after the book came out, though.

[snarp]

Goodbye, book. Goodbye.

[alias_sqbr]

I found the book useful, but it definitely assumed everyone's brains work in the same way, and that their perceptions are not clouded by prejudice, mental illness, or other kinds of neuroatypicality. As someone with an anxiety disorder I kept finding the title itself darkly amusing. If you don't have the instincts he's encouraging people to listen to I can see it being frustrating and unhelpful.

[vass]

Yeah, you're probably not his intended audience.

My impression of you is that you have a pretty well-calibrated bullshit detector, however you came by it, and that you're comfortable paying attention to it even -- especially -- when under social pressure not to do so.

His intended audience is mainly people who have been taught from birth not to trust their bullshit detector, and who have tried to replace said detector with not going out after dark or having a big strong boyfriend or being terrified all the time or whatever. And who are more prone than you are to being gaslighted into overriding whatever bullshit they do detect.

So for them being taught to distinguish between when they're scared for a reason and when they're scared for no reason is way more useful, along with learning to identify when they're getting tricked into ignoring their own misgivings.