Customer Reviews

Battling the Inner Dummy: The Craziness of Apparently Normal People

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

David Weiner has put together a truly entertaining book which answers the question,"What place in a person's mind allows generally reasonable people to do generally universally agreed upon unreasonable things?"

Well researched, this book looks at real world examples, knowing the reader applies them to themselves and to the people, they know.

Great chapters outline the base "limbic drives" present in all people. This mix of limbic drives is what powers our personalities and our actions, and this book offers explanations and a scorecard to see where the reader falls with regard to "average" behaviors. In the end, you have a better understanding of personality and actions, and a solid knowledge of the Inner Dummy in all of us.

GREAT READING !

A friend and I were discussing President Clinton's foibles when I asked, "What was he thinking?" My friend said, "Funny you should say that" and recommended Dave Weiner's book. Psychoanalysis is not my thing, however, I found "Battling the Inner Dummy" to be an enjoyable and stimulating read that provides an interesting perspective as to why seemingly intelligent and rational people do stupid things. I really liked the book.

Throughout our lives we have seen people doing things that we thought were senseless. Whether they were people in our workplace, people in government or close friends. After reading David Weiner's book, you realize that their "Inner Dummy" made them do it. They really can't control the senseless things they do because they don't know they are doing them. After reading "Battling the Inner Dummy" you are more tolerant of these "Dummy" captured people...and you try to control your own "Inner Dummy."

David Weiner has put together an altogether entertaining book defining what makes up our minds and our personalities. And what drives people to do the things they do.

In today's age where someone goes on national television, and says, "I want to Marry a Millionaire," this book offers incredible insight into what shapes extraordinary events in the mind.

Weiner's book is well researched,and offers many opportunities for self-analysis. It is a fun book to read and to pass. The analysis of the limbid drives will well illustrate personality traits in the reader and in people the reader knows. It asks the question, "What is Normal, Am I Normal, Are my Friends Normal?"

Just a blast to read!

This book is horrible. Mr. Weiner's writing style is hackneyed at best. He drives each point home relentlessly with an astounding number of examples. He uses a couple of gimmicks I found unbearable: First, his painfully detailed recreations of conversations he had with various individuals under the guise of collecting data for his book, but actually serve to showcase the breadth of Mr. Weiner's knowledge, and ability to annoy. Second, the ridiculous chapters in which makes Dr. Freud a character in this madness. This book had about three to ten pages worth of useful information - the rest of the book is all padding and nonsense.

This book does an amazing job in telling us how our minds really work. I have found most books on this subject to be tedious and difficult to read. But because Weiner keeps the writing lively and entertaining as well as informative, and intersperses his text with an imaginary and imaginative sub-plot involving Sigmund Freud, the book makes for a great read.

I cannot recommend Battling the Inner Dummy by David Weiner enough. This is an absolutely terrific book. Enormously inventive, erudite and playful at the same time, it brings some much needed analysis to a subject that has lain in the hinterland for far too long. I also have to say that he does a much better job than I have done in How To Manage Your Dimensionally Interactive Cyber Kinetics of portraying the peneteration of our intellectual and emotional lives by our most irrational components. I give this book five stars.

The most astonishing thing about this book is that the conclusions implicit in Freud have never been fully and constructively exploited by social thinkers. This book puts some elements of the libidinally infested academic community to shame. Sean O'Reilly Editor at-Large Travelers' Tales

How absolutely brilliant to describe the "id" as the Inner Dummy." If after reading this book you can't admit to yourself that you have an "inner dummy" then you are not being honest to the most important person in your life...yourself. If we would recognize the "inner dummy" ... our lives and those of others around us may be just a little bit better. Weiner has certainly made me aware of the crazy things I do and think nothing of doing them. Now I think of some of those things and say "what was I thinking of!" Thank you David for opening my eyes and I hope you've opened them up for everyone who has read your book.

Weiner's theory that much of our so-called 'irrational' behavior has its roots in the limbic system is interesting. However, the weakness of his theory, as well as this book, is his insistence on applying it willy-nilly to every example of irrationality he comes across, while failing to acknowledge the countless examples of people who don't display irrational behavior. One of the 'proofs' he gives is several examples of his valiant efforts to drone on about his theory at parties or on airplanes, only to find that people either leave or stare at him and then change the subject. Weiner interprets this as proof that people can't comprehend the mind-boggling implications of what he's saying. A more likely explanation is this: staring and changing the subject is one of the only ways to deal with someone who's trying his darndest to hijack the conversation. Frankly, this entire book read like a conversation with someone who only has one idea and who can't let go of it or see that there are serious flaws with his theory. I also agree with the other reviewers who suggest skipping the Freud segments. Everything else aside, they're tedious, poorly written and illustrate nothing that wasn't repeated several times in the text proper.

If you want to know why our minds sometimes drive us to do stupid, irrational things, then this is the book to read. It gets beneath the surface of our brain/minds to examine the actual programs of our subconscious minds, which Weiner has pieced together from a myriad of references. He describes how it is largely impervious to direct rational reasoning (we can't just tell ourselves that it is foolish to be phobic about airplanes and rid ourselves of the phobia), and is why he has selected the metaphor Inner Dummy to describe this instinctive/emotional system. The book also describes in an almost playful, yet erudite way, every therapeutic strategy we might use ourselves or recommend to others in changing the nature of unwanted quirks, phobias, compulsions or other disorders that can lead us to irrational thought and action. This book definitely deserves five stars.