book review reading

James O’Brien’s How To Be Right

Not all is lost for a world gone wrong…

The world is a weird and troubling place right now. (To be fair, its always been pretty weird, but right now feels especially boggling.) The current state of global affairs feels like satire adopted as policy. With fake news, alternative truths, and brazen offence in the face of accountability, parody & reality have been forcibly conjoined, stitched at the hip.

Swapping learning, understanding and experience for ill-thought views and the echoes of whispered bias can produce a very closed, one-sided view on a variety of subjects. Opinion threatens to replace evidence. And as always, the most vocal are of the opinion that their opinion is evident.

So how do you reason with those so intent on being heard?

Whilst I’m not an LBC regular listener, I’d heard several excerpts from James O’Brien’s radio show and appreciated his calm, rational approach to challenging & questioning motives of the most forthright of callers. (The famous “shape of your bananas” Brexit exchange will stick with me for a long time.) However, any account of what’s right or wrong from an individual perspective has the risk of appearing self-righteous if not well executed, and could simply come off as preaching. So even with my positive expectations I went into “How to be right in a world gone wrong” with mild apprehension.