Know A Person: Seeing Others Deeply

David Brooks explores the impact and importance of just stopping, listening, probing and pondering the thought and opinions of other persons. It fosters empathy in one’s self, but more importantly, it fosters deeper insights and self-awareness in those other persons. We have used this very same approach for years in our local faith-based community organizing work. It comprises the core of most psychiatric technology. In the right hands, this is one powerful book.

David Brooks is good at both reporting and synthesizing best current thinking. Here, in this new book, importantly, he is driven also by his own learning. I think of him as a reflective practitioner. A fellow traveler. This is a good book, not a great book. A 5 star rating, however, for cleat intent and effort. This is a “big tent” book full of breadcrumbs of learning and insight. A book that will be relevant and helpful for many. The best chapters go deep. A single topic unpacked like empathy. The chapters in Part 2 are substantive in this way. On the whole, however, the book goes wide (too wide) in addressing a broad range of both personal and public (civic) concerns. The civic focus requires separate treatment. Really, a separate book. Also, at times, this book is both over-written and under-written. A reporter’s dilemma. Hard to find the middle ground balancing theory and practice (stories). In brief, at a deeper level, I think the book lacks an idea architecture in many ways. There is no integrating framework offered. His “illuminator” frame partially does this but it is not fleshed out and defined rigorously enough. The book is more akin to a reporter’s field learnings coupled with a graduate student’s enthusiasm. The book has a palpable sense of discovery about it and offers us the promise of learning and seeing in new ways. And, indeed, it does that. Brooks helps us take stock and see in new ways. Learning these social skills and the “seeing others” skills more fully, more attentively, that Brooks points to, however, is not easy. I would have liked him to go deeper explaining how these skills are acquired and deepened. That said, I applaud Brooks task and his field research and his own reflections. He is a good role model in both his personal and professional life in the quest for lived wisdom. See chapter 17, “what is wisdom ?”. This is a well intended effort at pulling together this book and his learnings. Finally, his dedication to his deceased friend Peter Marks, his best friend, speaks volumes. Read chapter 10 and his poignant recollections of his friend. Pitch perfect writing found here.

I picked this book because I wanted to know more about how to handle two really important people in my life. This book was illuminating. It gave me ideas about how to use my empathetic nature even when in conflict with someone.

I don’t understand the hype. This book fails to engage and the writing is subpar. There are books that grip you from the start on this subject. This one doesn’t. Borefest.

Update : i struggled through and when he starts talking about his friend who passed, his style becomes more fluid and vastly improves the experience. Going from 1 to 4 stars.

Many know David Brooks for the professional hats he wears as a NYTs columnist and bestselling author, commentator for PBS NewsHour, and writer for The Atlantic. In his latest book, How to Know a Person, we discover that the man beneath these hats is an idealist, one who has chosen to use his platform as a writer to build and deepen human connection. In a society fraught with ever-increasing polarization and skyrocketing rates of depression, suicide, and gun violence, his book couldn’t come at a better time. Everyone should read it.

How to Know a Person is the author’s deep analysis of the kind of connection we all want to experience in our lives as often and in as many ways as possible. Brooks describes what it looks and feels like, what it doesn’t, and how we fail at it. And fail we do all too often. Who hasn’t asked a stranger at an event or on a plane what he does for a living or where she went to school? Brooks calls these kinds of questions the “instant size-up” of a “Diminisher,” the type who consciously or not, makes people feel unseen and small. Genuine connection, Brooks says, is an art, one requiring a skill set we can all develop to become what he calls “Illuminators,” those who see, respect, and value virtually everyone they know and meet. His book shows us how. It also gives us hope for a better world.

I got a lot out of this work. I learned that a good conversation always involves a balanced exchange and a great one sparks enlightenment. I learned that to really know others we must see them three-dimensionally: 1) as unique individuals; 2) as members of groups sharing social (e.g., ideological, religious, racial, class, etc.) and historical (e.g., racist, sexist, elitist, bigoted, etc.) inheritances; and 3) as human beings who view themselves as insiders or outsiders. I learned that asking the right questions requires a humble approach, and that even a dumb question is better than one insinuating how knowledgeable we are. I learned that hard conversations don’t have to spiral into bad ones, provided disagreements stop short of power struggles and character attacks. But when they do, I learned we must step back, ask why, and find mutual ground. And I learned that being there for friends in the depths of depression and grief is not about coaxing them out of it but offering the comfort of being seen and the sense we’ll be there on the other side of their despair.

That’s for starters. I could go on and on. I’m certain I’ll revisit this book throughout my life as I strive to evolve. It’s that kind of work — one anyone can pick up, randomly turn to any page, and learn something interesting, useful, enlightening and inspiring.

So why four stars and not five? I disagree with the author’s dismissal of the Myers Briggs personality test, as I’ve taken it countless times over the past 35 years and have consistently scored the same type. Moreover, I’ve found it extremely useful in helping me understand almost everyone in my life, when used as a set of spectrums rather than an either/or assessment. The Big Five, a test Brooks endorses, is one I’ve personally scored very differently on, depending on the times I’ve taken it (e.g., when grieving). Also, while Brooks includes in his work an example of narcissistic behavior, he gives us the impression that we can and should have deep conversations with literally everyone. He fails to mention that some people have disordered personalities that require the opposite approach: firm boundaries.

But don’t let these criticisms dissuade you from reading this book. Brooks’s writing is open, honest, deeply insightful, and admirably well-intentioned. His views are enriched by a broad range of humanistic sources spanning the fields of neuroscience, clinical and social psychology, philosophy, literature and film. The book is a joy to read. More importantly, it’s one that will inspire you to see and be seen in the best possible way. I highly recommend it.

El libro es entretenido, serio, científico, muy útil y cortito