Book Review - Snoop by Sam Gosling

(This Book Review reprinted from the Summer 2008 Round Top Register)

Here’s what the Austin American Statesman had to say about Sam Gosling.

(Seen on right at BookPeople event in Austin.)

“Sam Gosling is something of a rock star in the world of academia — winner of the American Psychological Association's 2008 Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award...cited in Malcolm Gladwell's international bestseller "Blink," profiled in a New York Times Magazine cover story.”

Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You - Gosling’s first book for the general public - is a guilty pleasure.

Its author accomplishes something rare in a popular book written by a research scientist. Snoop is readable, funny and informative - but doesn’t sell out the science.

The book highlights the latest findings in personality research, including many studies done by Gosling and his collaborators - but makes learning about your stuff, your self and others, fun.

Snoop also has local relevance to my part of Texas. Gosling visited my “tiny town” home of Round Top while writing this book. It's last chapter talks about the people from this area he interviewed while doing his research.

Snoop trains the reader to become a master Snoopologist.

Snoopology is the science of snooping through other people’s living and work spaces in order to make predictions about their personality and character.

Does a messy desk mean you have a messy mind?

Can women tell you are “only after one thing” by the posters on your wall?

Does that picture of Martin Luther King on your desk mean you are someone with a highly developed social conscience or just that you want to be seen that way?

Gosling admits snooping is a “special brand of voyeurism,” and clearly enjoys the practice himself. But under Snoop’s clever marketing hook lies a powerful understanding of our relationships with the objects and environments around us.

After reading the book, you begin to see this in yourself and others. You begin to realize how automatic our assumptions and reactive decisions are and how profoundly they impact our lives.
Looked at through the lens of science, you begin to see that we make incorrect judgments about others quite frequently. You also see that all of us are snooping - whether we are aware of it or not - almost all the time.

Snoop teaches the reader how a brilliant and careful research scientist uses snoopology to enhance his analysis of himself and others. The book also includes a few personality tests - one of which told me more than I wanted to know.

I discovered when taking the BIG FIVE test that I score quite high in both openness and neuroticism.

My readers may not find that particularly surprising given I have a reputation for having a big mouth and being nutty as a fruitcake.

I found it particularly distasteful since it is accurate.

But don’t worry, we all have great skills of self deception to fall back on if the truth becomes too much to handle. If Snoop hits too close to home, you can simply blow it off like you would a personality test in a women’s magazine.

But Gosling’s Snoopology training has a cumulative impact on a more attentive apprentice. The more you read, the more you understand how many of your daily decisions are made unconsciously.

You begin to see the serious consequences of being unaware of those facts. After all, we all make snap judgments about people based on how they look and where they live. We also make decisions about our homes the same way.

Gosling points out those stereotypes - though sometimes politically incorrect - are actually an important tool your brain uses to process information.

“If you didn’t use stereotypes,” he explains “you would be overwhelmed, because every item, person, and experience would have to be treated as a totally new experience, not part of a broader class.”

But Gosling makes this point in a way that incites a laugh.

“When you go to a new part of town, what makes you think the sidewalk slab in front of your foot is going to hold up when you put your foot on it? You have never put your foot there before. How do you know it’s not going to cave in or catch fire or swim away?

“Or why should you believe the sandwich you are about to eat is edible? You’ve never eaten that particular sandwich before.

“Face the fact that, by making generalizations to guide your interactions, you are using evil stereotypes about sidewalks and sandwiches, not considering them as individual unique entities in their own right.”

Snoop is a great read! It’s fun, informative and often quite surprising. I highly recommend it.

Of course - to be honest - I would. Snoop’s last chapter is about my Truehome project.

My personality - as my readers know - pushes me towards shameless self promotion.

Round Top Register Endorses Barack Obama

As I have mentioned before on this blog, I run a tiny rural quarterly newspaper that comes from a town with a population of 77 in central Texas. Our next issue goes to press early next week. The Texas Democratic primary is on March 4th, and we are endorsing a candidate for President.

This is what that editorial in the Round Top Register will say.

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Things are changing fast in America. In November we will be selecting a new President. The odds are that either an African-American or a woman will be elected to the highest office in the land. That would be a truly "historic" choice that would say something profound about how far we have come.

As an American citizen, those facts make my chest puff up like a new father peering through the window as his first child. I am proud of my nation, amazed at how far we have come and very hopeful for the future. And that is a transformation I did not think was possible.

I am a hopeful person in my everyday life, but I had lost all faith that we would ever rise above the politics of fear and division promoted by the last administration, and the cronyism, deceit and excess of the one before. To me, the presidents that had come before those only looked better in retrospect. During their administrations, I was equally disappointed.

I was in the sixth grade when John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Since that time, no candidate for the Presidency - nor any sitting President – has overcome the cynicism and sullen anger I have felt towards our government.

But that is all changed now.

I believe we are at the crossroads of what may prove to be the most significant period of constructive political change in our nation’s politics in the last fifty years. And all because one voice in this race has turned the anger and frustration of the American people into hope.

One voice has elevated the civility of our political discourse in a way that has changed the rules for what makes a successful campaign. One voice has found a way to inspire, to talk straight about our challenges, to offer compassion, and unbelievably…still win!

If there was one truth I held to be inalienable, it was that a politician could not be act like a good and respectful person – and win.

But that single voice has made it politically dangerous to “swift boat” the opposition. It has quieted the dirty cycle of character assassination that has defiled our nation for so long. It may not last, but we are the ones who allow such tactics to influence our votes, and we are being taught something new.

We need nothing more in this time than to be able to trust our leaders. Our nation faces many dangerous and complex challenges. The people are fed up with partisanship and gridlock, with ideology instead of results. They see our country’s wealth and vitality slipping away and they are in no mood for that trend to continue. They have lost faith.

Sacrifice will be needed – sacrifice by you and me – if we are to face and overcome our many challenges. And people will not sacrifice of themselves for a government they cannot trust.

Only one voice in this campaign tells the truth about that.

Only one voice says “…it will not be easy.” And that is the voice comes from a black man who has risen from humble beginnings to become the junior senator from Illinois.

That voice comes from Barack Obama.

No one wants to talk about race and gender. The media dances around it. The campaigns duck the subject as though it were an illicit affair or a charge of corruption.

But isn’t the fact we have come to the point in our history that a black man or a woman could become President what is most exciting about this race?

And isn’t that a powerful signal to the world that we are still the most vibrant, egalitarian, compassionate and politically advanced nation on earth!

Think what it will mean if and when it happens…about who we are!

Our country was founded on the principle that “all men were created equal.” But that was just a “pie in the sky” promise whose time had not come when it was written. In 1776, it was far from true.

If the truth would have been told, it would have said “all well educated white land owners of Western European lineage with considerable wealth” are created equal.

Women, Native Americans, Hispanics, Asians, and immigrants of every shade and culture were not “equal” to most of our founding fathers, and African Americans were their slaves!

All of those “unequal” early inhabitants of the thirteen colonies were human beings with hope in their hearts, with children to raise and dreams they wanted to fulfill…but none of them had a place at the table when our constitution was signed.

But a small group among those privileged few shared a vision of a better nation, and put their lives on the line to give it a chance to rise to heights never seen before.

People have put their lives on the line to fulfill that vision ever since. Generation upon generation, people have suffered and died for the hope that it would some day become a reality.

Now, we are on the verge of making that dream come true.

And if we do, we will have broken the chains of thousands of years of history. We will have truly done something unparalleled not just in our time, but in the history of mankind.

And we, as a nation, will have accomplished that.

You and I.

Politicians arise from the people. Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton will not have made this happen, any more than John McCain created campaign finance reform on his own.

“We the people” sometimes rise up and propel the leaders we need into power…and we are doing that now.

And let us talk of leadership.

You cannot lead people where they will not go. You cannot trick or manipulate, frighten or cajole a nation into rising to challenges, particularly in this time when the electorate is in many ways more sophisticated and better informed than their politicians.

In an information rich nation of free people, you must lead by example. You must lead by building trust. You must lead by creating a big vision that people can believe in, and then walking your talk as best you can.

Arrogance will not get you there. Humility will be required, and forgiveness, and patience, and honesty about your own mistakes and weaknesses.

And now it appears someone has appeared who understands these things.

Barack Obama is charged by his opponents with not having the experience to be a good leader. Let us look at the facts as they are.

What kind of leadership does it take to create a campaign that has defied the predictions of every odds maker in the land from little or nothing, and to have effectively defeated the most powerful political force in the Democratic party?

What kind of leader does it take to craft a message that inspires a nation to engage in the political process to a degree not seen in most of our lifetimes?

There was no genius Karl Rove with a cadre of political operatives behind the scenes when this started. The fix was not in. There was no previous president in this man’s family with a political machine at his beck and call, and the power and prestige to pave the way.

Obama did this himself - he and his wife, Michelle - and so far they have done it without visibly sacrificing their principles.

And all of this was done in a nation which has not fully overcome racism and prejudice; and one obsessed with self interest and material gain.

Think what kind of leadership that takes.

And look at the tools he used to build this unstoppable political juggernaut. Think what intelligence, strategic vision, persuasiveness, planning and determination it took to make that happen.

Here is real leadership. Real results. Proof that anyone can see.

From my point of view as an independent, all four of the candidates still in the race are good people. I won’t be voting for him, but I have long admired John McCain’s record of integrity and independence. I won’t be voting for Mike Huckabee either, but he is a likable figure and I’d love to grab my guitar and sit in with his band, or go to his church to hear a sermon.

The grudge the electorate holds against Hilary Clinton involves the sins of her husband, not her own. The main thing we cannot forgive…is that she forgave him.

We blame her for the fact we cannot forgive the man she loves. That says something about us, not her.

I have been watching all these candidates for months, and my sense is that she is a talented, effective, focused and caring person who would make an excellent President.

And I for one would have been passionately excited to support a woman of her quality for many of the same reasons I now support Barack Obama had I had not heard that voice.

After all, an equally important “glass ceiling” would have been broken. A new day would have come, one that is still long past due.

But I did hear that unexpected voice crying in the wilderness.

Who could have known this would happen? From whence did this voice rise up?

I say the answer is within us.

We called Barack Obama forth because we were ready for a new day. And now we must take what we have created and use it step by step to make our country great again.

For all his eloquence and brilliance, Barack Obama is just a man. He will make mistakes. He cannot change America on his own. Nor can our government.

Alone, and without the patience and determination of the people he will only be one more politician who tried and failed.

But he offers us an opportunity to be a better nation, an opportunity to return to our better selves, an opportunity to shine our light once again to the nations of the world.

We should leap for this opportunity. We should listen to that voice within us - the one he is talking to when he says “…yes we can.”

Because he is living proof that it is true.