The Gift of Fear

I am not sure how much of a departure this is for Un:Bound, but I thought I would give it a go. Having started with late 19th century classic French literature, moved on to post-modern literary landscapes, this review is about what is sort-of a self-help book. I say sort-of, because it isn't really. But more of that in a moment, before I get to that, I need to explain some of the machinations that go on inside my head.

Despite living in the austere and rarified atmosphere of Cambridge, I ply my trade in old London town. And beside the office where I conduct my business, there is a secondhand bookstore. And an odd one, at that, with all manner of weird and wonderful books turning up. (I even picked up some old Kinky Friedman books, and a 1930s copy of Walden, which gives something of a flavour of the place.)

'The Gift of Fear' caught my eye, both due to the highly reflective tinfoil cover, and the fact it was trying to elbow its way into the philosophy section. I love philosophy books, and the more academic tomes in the psychology section, amogst the many sorts I read. And the subtitle of this book, 'Survival Signals That Protect Us From Violence', intrigued me. A quick flick through, and it was mine.

This isn't a self-help book. It isn't a fluffy 'take a swim in lake you' book. It isn't a dissertation on how and why people become serial stalkers and domestically violent. It is, however, slightly more than pop-psychology, but less than a rigourous study into abnormal behaviour. As a consultant to politicians, media stars, corportations and the general public, he advocates that it is easy to spot when someone will end up being violent. 'The signs are all there', would be a summary, 'if we only listen to our instincts'. It did always strike me as bizarre that news reporters, at some high school shooting or family murder, would elicit comments along the lines of 'he was always such a quiet man, normal, who would have thought?' when he can't have been. People must have known, they just, crucially, ignored the signals.

And reading this book, you will also know. But that isn't what I want to say here. I want to compare it to a few others, one maybe obvious, and others not. The Lucifer Effect, written by the designer of The Stanford Prison Experiment came to my mind first. Is it nature, nurture, systemic or situational forces that cause people to obsess over others? To cause them harm? Taken together, these two books come at what is basically the same theme from very different angles. Neither will excuse the violence, and neither calls for the perpatrators to be let off. There is always a choice. (Outside of the truly unstable sociopaths.)

Couple those with the lingustically disruptive texts I have, and your defense is stronger. Couple it with the books on the scrutiny of high-pressure selling techniques, and the parallels are obvious. All the buttons that are pressed aren't more than a hair's breadth apart. 'The Gift of Fear' draws in different inferences from different places, and to most the case studies, while some more horrific than others, really come down to common sense, and the main advice you take from the book: Trust your instincts. Worry is bad, fear is good.

The parts that do descend into self-help territory are the weakest, but he withdraws from them before they get too wooly. The parts that pull apart the driving forces, the signs to look for in others to predict how they will behave, are the strongest, with some genuine insights into abnomal behaviours. Some, I say.

The typeface is big, the style reasonably light, and it took me only a few commutes to read. It also gave me a few new questions to ask when interviewing potential employees, not to check if they will go on a machete rampage six months hence, but to see how they handle them. So perhaps I took from this lessons orthogonal to those I should have, but it was an interesting read. And for a cheap book picked up in a backstreet secondhand bookstore, what more could you ask?