Polemical Judo: Memes for our Political Knife-fight

by David Brin

A brazen guide for sane Americans to bypass trench warfare and win our life or death struggle for civilization. Are we in phase 8 of America’s 250 year civil war? This book explores the possibility of using agility — winning political battles with the shifting dexterity of jiu jitsu — that never occurs to many politicians or strategists. Sure, talk show hosts milk each day’s outrage for humor, indignation and ratings. But does anyone consider ways to get off the hoary, insipid "left-right political axis" and maneuver in three dimensions? Amid the latest tweet-storm and news-grabbing stunt, what pundit ever steps back to ask "Hey, what actually just happened?" Across today’s fast-changing political landscape, Brin explores how to confront our neighbors not with familiar chasms, but commonalities - things both you and they know to be true. How to counter the all-out war against facts and all fact-using professions, including science and the "fake news" media. Using actual outcomes to demolish comfy oft-told narratives — by seeking better strategies against deficits, at engendering a healthy economy and even at fostering open-creative-competitive enterprise. Polemical Judo ranges from electoral cheating to the economy; from saving the planet to troubles with Russia and China; from conspiracies to racism, to forging a Big Tent Coalition. It also explores more extreme "exit strategies" — impeachment, indictment, the 25th Amendment and all that, as well as incorporating bold ideas from Lincoln, FDR, MLK and the Greatest Generation. Because those brave geniuses fought earlier battles for us. And they won. ... plus tactics, tactics, tactics that you’ve never seen before. They might — or might not work. But shouldn’t someone at least try some of them? David Brin's best-selling novels include The Postman (filmed in 1997) plus explorations of our near-future in Earth and Existence. His award-winning novels and short stories explore vividly speculative ideas through a hard-science lens. His nonfiction book, The Transparent Society, won the American Library Association's Freedom of Speech Award for exploring 21st Century concerns about security, secrecy, accountability and privacy.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics

343 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 25, 2019

About the author

David Brin is a scientist, speaker, and world-known author. His novels have been New York Times Bestsellers, winning multiple Hugo, Nebula and other awards. At least a dozen have been translated into more than twenty languages.

Existence, his latest novel, offers an unusual scenario for first contact. His ecological thriller, Earth, foreshadowed global warming, cyberwarfare and near-future trends such as the World Wide Web. A movie, directed by Kevin Costner, was loosely based on his post-apocalyptic novel, The Postman. Startide Rising won the Hugo and Nebula Awards for best novel. The Uplift War also won the Hugo Award.

His non-fiction book -- The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Freedom and Privacy? -- deals with secrecy in the modern world. It won the Freedom of Speech Prize from the American Library Association.

Brin serves on advisory committees dealing with subjects as diverse as national defense and homeland security, astronomy and space exploration, SETI, nanotechnology, and philanthropy.

David appears frequently on TV, including "The Universe" and on the History Channel's "Life After People."

Full and updated at:

http://www.davidbrin.com/biography.htm

Reviews

[Sean Carlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good grief, my man David Brin does not make it easy to rate this book. The content earns an A -- for being intelligent, topical, well-reasoned, thought-provoking, and passionately argued.

It's the presentation where Polemical Judo runs into trouble; given the intellectual depth and ambitious scope of the book, it was desperately in need of some editorial aegis. Compiled from his exhaustive trove of blog posts first published on Contrary Brin, it isn't merely the weird (and ubiquitous) formatting idiosyncrasies that make Polemical Judo such a challenge to read -- sudden (and inexplicable) shifts in font size and margin width, to say nothing of fairly consistent typos -- but the very structure of the content itself: Brin's got so many ideas in his head at any given time, the resulting manuscript is a schizophrenic pastiche of digressions (sections literally labeled "Pause" in which he indulges a lengthy tangent in the middle of a chapter), infinite footnotes (some of them paragraphs long in their own right!), hyperlinks to relevant articles and source materials, flashbacks ("As we saw in Chapter 5..."), and even flashforwards ("As we'll see in Chapter 12...")!

It's overwhelming at best and dizzying at worst. Polemical Judo is by Brin's own acknowledgment self-published, which is fine, but by all evidence also self-edited -- which is deeply problematic, because I don't think he always appreciates how easy it is for us "normals" to become disoriented in his beautiful mind. You'd need one of those evidence boards so common in TV police procedurals to keep all this content straight! That's a shame, because his insights into our dysfunctional political process and passion for the virtues of Enlightenment democracy are just what the doctor ordered at this unprecedented turning point in American history.

For better and worse, Polemical Judo is a challenging piece of work -- both refreshingly (with respect to its ideas and strategies) and confusingly (its organizational structure). Alas, I fear the latter will be an insurmountable impediment to the wider dissemination of the former.

[Betsy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a weird book. It's mostly a compilation of material Brin already published on his blog, Contrary Brin, and it seems rather disjointed. Also the frequent change of type size and style was a little distracting. His writing style is also strange. He's exhorting us to do certain things, immediately, so he's constantly yelling at the reader. And he doesn't always include in depth explanations for his recommendations.

Still there are many interesting ideas. If you're a dedicated conservative, you probably wouldn't appreciate this, but I would recommend it to liberals.

[Bart Stuck · Rating 4 out of 5]

alas babylon: the memes of society have led to needless conflicts, the lessons of Jesus of Nazareth about loving your neighbor as yourself are lost in the noise of the news cycle (which is neither news nor does it cycle anything but noise)

[David Mcquillen · Rating 4 out of 5]

All credit to David Brin for readily engaging in the fight to improve American democracy (and Democratic Party messaging) in these challenging times.

Well worth reading for anyone seeking outside the box strategies for countering the deleterious propaganda of MAGA social media and the likes of Fox News.

[Tai · Rating 4 out of 5]

Outdated given it was written in 2019, but still full of a number of valid points and tactics. A good read for those interested in having (US) political discussions, and for those who want to get involved.

[William Ross · Rating 5 out of 5]

Timely

As political fatigue sets in with many Americans, this is the book that is needed to rouse the spirit again. Huge fan of David Brin.