So . . . it so happens that I've been reading a couple of books that may be of interest to my small but loyal readership. One of them, More Money Than Brains by Laura Penny, is the subject of today's post, and the other may wait another week or two as I haven't finished reading it yet. I'm not really in the practice of doing book reviews, so the critical component of the critique will be brief and I'll discuss the aspects of the book that relate to my usual topics.
More Money Than Brains is best described as a screed against those who think that knowledge is not an end in and of itself. It is written in a very direct, casual style, with no punches pulled (and a few extended a bit further than they warrant). The focus of the book is post-secondary education and its role in society (the subtitle of the book is "Why School Sucks, College is Crap, and Idiots Think They're Right), but the ideas branch out into popular culture, politics, interpersonal communication, and a host of other topics.
It's a pretty breezy read, written as much to entertain through shock and awe as to make a point. The points, in fact, are made somewhat repeatedly, but there's no more repetition than the average Malcolm Gladwell book. The author's politics intrude a bit too much, and though she insists on being even-handed in her criticism of the left and right, it only heightens her disdain of the latter when she has to dig deep to find targets on the left (e.g. 9/11 conspiracists). Nerds vs. bullies forms the theme of the book, with nerds being thoughtful, educated, reasoned individuals and bullies being Bushian, gut-driven, instinctual "deciders."
My biggest issue with the book, though, is its inconsistency. There are numerous examples of little contradictions (e.g. on page 186 she takes a former beauty pageant contestant to task for using anecdotal evidence to dispute more formal research; a scant five pages later she does the exact same thing herself), but the problem is that Penny frequently undermines her own points by behaving in opposition to them. She decries the "us vs. them, you're either with us or against us" mentality of right-wing politics, and bases an entire chapter around the idea that two differing ideas don't necessarily need to be in opposition. Then she goes on to spend the final pages of the book blaming the 2008 financial meltdown on bully bankers because they aren't like the "nerds."
One frequent topic of the book, business schools, is of particular interest to me (she thinks they should be in vocational colleges and not in universities). Again she shows her inconsistency by saying that the goal of a university (as opposed to college or vocational) education is not to get a job but rather to learn, and then proceeds to justify the existence of humanities departments by explaining that they teach skills that, according to The Economist, are those most in demand by employers. She also displays a lack of knowledge of the difference between economics departments and business departments.
The way that Penny describes the ideal university, it seems to me to be too much the stereotypical ivory tower serving the moneyed elite. It is all well and good to say that the humanities benefit humanity, but realistically (most) people need to study something that will be of use to them, career-wise. Generally people cannot afford to spend years of their life studying something because it is interesting to them.
Overall, I feel disappointed in the book, primarily because I agree with many of her points, but they are buried under a mountain of resentment, inconsistency, and unrelated ideas. I think if the book had stuck to the goals stated in the first chapter it would have been better. Instead, I'm left with a mishmash attempting to explain something I'm really not that interested in. But hey, the wide-ranging and vitriolic content got her more attention (it's a Globe and Mail "notable book," and it was in that paper that I first took notice of it), so maybe she'll eventually end up with more money after all.
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