Duncan Honeycutt

Compelling yet contrary scholarship

Reviewed: 01-09-23

This brought great clarity to my perspective on the origins of yoga. As a generally skeptical, academic reader of religious histories, this work was interesting, relevant, and also modest in its assertions. Though there is some insinuation that the popular historical narrative was partly fabricated by a few key 20th century figures, the book is free of defamatory or condemnatory remarks. It also helped me square my knowledge of Patanjali and his western interpreters (esp. Crowley) with the modern, movement-based yoga I see all around me.

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1 person found this helpful

Good content, dodgy writing

Reviewed: 10-22-22

The patient stories from Dr. Ofri's practice were valuable and relevant, and the inclusion of research relevant to communication techniques was interesting and left me wanting to apply it.

Overall, though, I had a very hard time finishing this book. For a book written intentionally on the topic of good communication, I felt it was very over-written. There were far too many overgeneralizations, cliché analogies, and pretentious adjectives for my taste. At times, I was literally cringing because of the excessive wordiness and try-hard vocabulary. These issues were so pervasive that I feel like this must also be seen as a failure on the editors part.

If you want to argue that doctors confuse patients with obscure jargon, why would you write a book with so many excessively fancy words?

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Relieving, to say the least

Reviewed: 01-10-22

As a student during the last few years, I have noticed and been influenced by the ideology McWhorter describes. I have even adopted some of the phrasings he criticizes, and realized how I did so somewhat uncritically and with a sense of obliging fealty which I might ordinarily resist.

I have lost relationships over the ideology he characterizes. I have felt personally terrorized by the double-binds which are espoused as verities. I have had people try to tarnish my reputation and question my sincerity even as I was engaged in direct community action. I had been insulted and ostracized so consistently than I began to confuse such treatment as a natural fact attributable to my own ineptitude.

I lament not trusting more in my own actions and basic decency, and for a while jumping on the bandwagon of outrage. I now see these as largely well-intentioned and inconsequential failings, as minor yet mbarrassing distractions. It is so relieving to see the ugly banality of this campaign to shame of otherwise harmless and decent people. It isn't helping, and it isn't dignified.

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2 people found this helpful

Timely & Necessary

Reviewed: 04-11-21

I loved hearing you read this out loud Nadine! This will inform my perspective on controversial issues for a long time to come, and I hope to integrate some of your suggestions and perspective into a medical student group I started. My generation needs to make every effort to (re)learn how to have difficult conversations without blaming the people they disagree with for making them feel bad. US culture in general could benefit from learning how to listen better and build greater resilience to stress.

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