Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Nervous States: Democracy and the Decline of Reason
    Nervous States: Democracy and the Decline of Reason
    Nervous States: Democracy and the Decline of Reason
    Audiobook11 hours

    Nervous States: Democracy and the Decline of Reason

    Written by William Davies

    Narrated by Chris MacDonnell

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    In this sweeping and provocative work, political economist William Davies draws on a four-hundred-year history of ideas to reframe our understanding of the contemporary world. He argues that global trends decades and even centuries in the making have reduced a world of logic and fact into one driven by emotions-particularly fear and anxiety. This has ushered in an age of "nervous states," both in our individual bodies and our body politic.

    Eloquently tracing the history of accounting, statistics, science, and human anatomy from the Enlightenment to the present, Davies shows how we invented expertise in the seventeenth century to calm the violent disputes-over God and the nature of reality-that ravaged Europe. By separating truth from emotion, scientific, testable facts paved a way out of constant warfare and established a basis for consensus, which became the bedrock of modern politics, business, and democracy.

    Informed by research on psychology and economics, Davies reveals how widespread feelings of fear, vulnerability, physical and psychological pain, and growing inequality reshaped our politics, upending these centuries-old ideals of how we understand the world and organize society.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHighbridge Company
    Release dateApr 16, 2019
    ISBN9781684418701
    Nervous States: Democracy and the Decline of Reason

    Related to Nervous States

    Related audiobooks

    Politics For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The Conspirasphere

      Feb 23, 2023

      Kaiser Heinrich XIII of the Fourth Reich was always going to be a long shot. Even if you buy the contentions of the Reichsbürger movement – that the Second World War never officially ended, because no peace treaty was signed between Germany and the A

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Master of Negation

      Aug 13, 2018

      The Master of Negation
      6 min read

    • Article

      Ethical Dilemma

      Jul 30, 2018

      It seems to me that it is those without power who complain about political and social structures; whereas those who have power have few complaints. And so it is at my workplace: the powerless complain, while those with power rule. But the power seems

      2 min read

    • Article

      The American Crisis

      Sep 12, 2018

      The American Crisis
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Self Is Other People

      Apr 3, 2018

      The Self Is Other People
      3 min read

    • Article

      Creative Empathy In A Pandemic

      Mar 19, 2020

      One thing about a pandemic: It's inclusive. We cannot survive it, move beyond it, by protecting merely some people. We have to protect everyone. Of all the disruption, paradox and chaos that have been unleashed by the coronavirus, this is the most st

      4 min read

    • Article

      The Physics of Crowds

      Sep 19, 2023

      The Physics of Crowds
      10 min read

    • Article

      Beware Of Conspiracy Rabbit Holes

      Apr 10, 2024

      THE terrorist attack in Moscow and the Baltimore bridge incident in the USA have resulted in a tsunami of conspiracy theories enveloping the world. These incidents gave birth to and spawned a tsunami of conspiracy theories, from the bizarre to the mu

      1 min read

    • Article

      In The Mind Of A Looter

      Jul 23, 2021

      In The Mind Of A Looter
      4 min read

    • Article

      QAnon & co

      Dec 18, 2020

      QAnon & co
      6 min read

    • Article

      Gateway Anger

      May 14, 2023

      Gateway Anger
      2 min read

    • Article

      From The Editor

      May 20, 2021

      From The Editor
      2 min read

    • Article

      The Plots Thicken

      Oct 23, 2020

      COVID-19 is a bioweapon developed in a Chinese government laboratory. Scientists, politicians and billionaires are conspiring to profit from the spread of the pandemic. The coronavirus is a global drive to force people to get vaccinated. And new 5G c

      3 min read

    • Article

      A Crisis Of Truths

      Jan 27, 2022

      A Crisis Of Truths
      9 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Nervous States

    3.5/5

    19 ratings3 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      Generally a good read though there were parts of the book that I skimmed through. I’ve read so many similar books, especially in the era of Trump, bemoaning the loss of reason and the disregard and contempt for expertise expressed by many, particularly on the right.

      The author wrote this book early in the days of Trump and before Covid so my guess is that the author might be more pessimistic about Democracy and the behavior of many voters and citizens.

      Davies provided an excellent overview of the influence and thoughts of various philosophers including Hobbes and Descartes. This book was an incorporation of various disciplines including philosophy, history, political science, psychology and economics.

      P.S. I never considered the author’s contention in the book that Trump voters tended to be less healthy and more out of shape than Clinton voters based on the appearance of their supporters at rallies.
    • 4/5
      In this book, Willilam Davies explains that facts and expertise have fallen into second place behind feelings in how people relate to the world. Experts, he explains, deal with facts and are therefore unable to relate to the prime concerns and perspectives of the population. It is an interesting idea and there is much in this book that is thought-provoking.I found it densely written -- the style is not easily engaging. And he makes some real leaps in logic (in my opinion), such as when he links a rise in chronic pan to the appeal of authoritarian leaders. On the plus side, I really liked the way Mr. Davies went back to the philosophical beginnings of rational expertise. He draws a trajectory from Descartes to artificial intelligence and from Hobbes to the free market to growing income inequality. And I applaud that he didn't call simply for better leadership, but for a different model and ideal of leadership.The novel ideas and historical context make this book worth reading, I think, despite its flaws.
    • 4/5
      This is essentially an account of the breakdown of the scientific, rational, objective way of looking at the world that western society has been developing since the early seventeenth century, or how we got from Hobbes and Descartes to Trump and Facebook. Instead of taking the primacy of rational expertise and scientific method for granted, Davies goes back to look at where they come from and why we needed them, and then at how some of the most important ideas it relies on have been undermined. Inter alia, Descartes's concept of the objective, rational mind as something separate from the subjective body falls in the light of modern developments in physiology and psychology, and the parallel development of artificial intelligence; the ideas of Hobbes about our need for an authoritarian regulator to enforce the rule of law are undermined by the ideology of free-market capitalism and by the disproportionate economic and political power of a few wealthy capitalists (who are in effect their own regulators), whilst the distinction between peace and war that was at the heart of Enlightenment ideas of civil order has come into question, not only as a result of terrorism and revolutions but also from the increasing tendency to use the language and attitude of war in areas that ought to belong to civil life. The speed at which knowledge moves and decisions have to be taken in the internet world are more akin to Clausewitzian war than to civil peace, as well.One of the things it's most difficult to grasp if you've been brought up in the rational, liberal tradition is that very often people don't act in the self-interested way that Hobbes and common sense say they ought to. Self-harm is a classic response of the powerless to their powerlessness, and it happens at the ballot-box just as much as it does in the off-licence or the pharmacy. Inequality isn't just an economic fact, either, but it is often an existential one: Davies draws attention to the figures that show how life-expectancy in the poorer sectors of society is declining in many developed countries, especially in the US. And how a disproportionate number of the people who voted for Trump have chronic illnesses. Davies doesn't suggest any easy answers, but he does insist that we can't turn back the clock to an Age of Enlightenment rationalism any more than populists can turn the clock back to an imagined age of national supremacy and prosperity. You can't win arguments against people who don't accept the terms of rational debate, a new strategy is needed. He sees a kind of glimmer of hope in the realisation that we will soon be forced into concerted action against the climate emergency: like a war, this stands the chance of giving people a united purpose and a willingness to accept collective decisions. Oddly enough, I don't find the thought of wet feet very comforting...Still, this is a useful, well-written book, that seems to make sense of a lot of stuff that doesn't actually make sense.