Monday 13 May 2024

The Algebra of Happiness by Scott Galloway – Book Review

 


Publisher’s write-up:

‘Scott Galloway teaches brand strategy at NYU's Stern School of Business, but often his class veers to life strategy. His students are smart and hardworking, but they struggle with life's biggest questions, just like the rest of us. What's the formula for a life well lived? How can you have a meaningful career, not just a lucrative one? Is work/life balance really possible? What does it take to make a long-term relationship succeed?

Galloway explores these and many other questions in the take-no-prisoners style that has made him a sought-after commentator and YouTube star.’

Algebra of Happiness is a book by the public speaker and YouTuber – Scott Galloway. In this book, he attempts to create a formula for happiness and how to lead a happy life. For most of it, he used examples from his own life to substantiate his ‘formulae for happiness’.

I would address the elephant in the room – this is a horrible book and does not do justice to the title. It is written by an extremely privileged man who is oblivious to his privilege. There is nothing wrong in being privileged but given that his ‘advice’ is mostly based on what ‘he did’, it is not necessarily open to everyone else – wherein, his father was the vice-president of a major company and grew up in an upper-middle-class house in Orange County California. He talks about how he could persevere and find other avenues of study that interested him even though he was very average at university – but most people in the US or anywhere else in the world do not have the safety net that he has.

Next, this is exclusively addressed to cisgendered heterosexual men. For instance, here is one of his advice:

‘Don’t ever let your wife be cold or hungry. I mean … ever.’ - did not use the gender-neutral word ‘spouse’ or just could have said ‘partner’. Moreover, if one’s wife is hungry, wouldn’t she have the independence to help herself? This whole point that one’s wife needs their husband to take care of their basic needs is a very patriarchal thought to begin with.

I fall into the demographic that the writer is targeting (cisgendered heterosexual man), but then, his advice is not entirely relevant given he was largely reinforcing patriarchal tropes such as the one above and had a kind of saviour complex. I am not against books written for a specific demographic – in this case, cisgendered heterosexual men, but then, that must be clearly stated as the objective – here the author repeatedly presents this book as though it is universal that could be read by anyone.

There were also several contradictory statements throughout the book, and I would cite some of them below:

‘The cosmos recognizes this and rewards this behavior with the deepest meaning and well-being that any of us can register. As an atheist, I believe this is it.’ - using vague words such as ‘cosmos’ / ‘universe’ rewarding oneself is often what is used by spiritual gurus and saying he believes this as an atheist, is contradictory to begin with. It is augmented by the next quote that I am adding below:

‘I’m 100 percent certain there is no god. At least not the Morgan Freeman/Lifetime/Fox version of God. However, I do pray.’

The statement above is equal to an alleged vegan saying that they would never consume animals, however, they like to catch fresh fish in the lake and eat them.

He insists on how marriage is the solution to happiness and at the same time states that he never believes marriage is mandatory. If I go on citing his contradictory statements in the book, this review would be endless, so I would stop here.

So, he is someone unsure of himself and at the same time unaware of his privilege of coming from a rich background. Of all things that the United States is known for, generous social spending is not one of them. For him to say, ‘The difference is being born in America, and the generosity of California taxpayers, who gave the child of a secretary the chance to attend a world-class university.’ - it must be noted that many people from other backgrounds cannot afford to attend these universities in the first place and the fact that he finds this generous is telling of the wealth in his family. He also conveniently cites only the profession of his mother here, whereas he does state once in his book about his father - ‘I was the only son in a nuclear family where Dad was a vice president for International Telegraph and Telegram (ITT) and Mom was a secretary.

To conclude, this book is for cis-heterosexual men, who believe in yesteryear patriarchal tropes and if that is your thing, read this book. To all other reasonable people, avoid this at all costs. I would award this book a rating of one on ten.

Rating – 1/10

Have a nice day,
Andy

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