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| Thank goodness I didn't have to pay the $16 for this monster. |
This book comes off like a pseudo-scientific version of a David Koresh sermon - one of those all-nighters where the cult leader harangues his followers spending hours telling him he's going to tell them some great and magnificent "truth" and that all these other so-called experts are against him because they can't handle the truth, but if they'll just listen to him, the truth will be explained. Then he never quite gets to the truth and tells you that you'll have to come back tomorrow night and he'll explain the rest of it. Griffiths spends the first two chapters of his book telling you what he's going to tell you and why you won't like it and probably won't understand it unless you read the book two or three more times, but he promises that that in chapter 4 paragraph 7 or something, the truth of the human condition will be explained and will set you free from guilt.
Of course if you go to chapter 4, paragraph 7
you'll be treated to another repetitive, name-dropping, collection of
confident assertions that the "human condition" is clearly explained or
will be in Chapter 8 or that it was in Chapter 3 and you were just too stupid to get it. And then Griffith sets sail on
another of those boundless oceanic sentences from which my college grammar
instructor would be hard pressed to extract a subject and predicate
from somewhere within the tangle of hyphens, semi-colons and parentheticals. (Griffith just loves his hyphenated
words).
I got the impression that
he was leading up to the idea that our natural state was running around
naked and not having much sex and living as a cooperative member of the
collective. He mangles up a mish-mash of academic sounding references
to Plato, Darwin, Moses and a panoply of religious and scientific
characters, flinging them at you so quickly and in such a disorganized
way, it's like stepping into the mind of someone with severe bipolar
experiencing an almost psychotic manic episode. Having two bipolar
family members, I recognize the pressured speech and the skirting along
the edges of word salad that characterizes the prose in this book,
pretending to be academic brilliance.
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| This gets my lowest rating for poor writing, muddled logic and creepifying content. |
I'm not saying Griffith is going to go off and commit human sacrifices, but the style of the book has and website, his array of followers who shout his praises and who actually vow that Griffith's brilliant work is going to "save the world", give me pause. Of course, as a Christian I follow someone who claimed he would save the world (at least the bit that wanted to be saved). I suppose a fairer comparison between Griffith and a similar leader would be to compare him to L. Ron Hubbard. He started out with claims that he could save the world and a scientific sounding book. I tried once to read "Dianetics", Hubbard's book and Scientology's "bible". Hubbard's reminds me a lot of Griffith's work.
Will understanding the "human condition" save the world from war and stuff? I don't think so. Okay, confuse the world maybe, but save it? I'm not sure letting our reasoning mind assent to our stumbling around naked, merging with the collective and following our instincts is going to solve any world problems. Of course, I suppose if the enlightened folk who belong to Griffith's gang of acolytes are put in charge, we won't have to actually think about such things anymore.
This book has a creepy sort of vibe to it. Griffith would say it's because I am in denial and cannot deal with the truth. Jack Nicholson should play Griffith in the movie. Sorry guys, I don't think this awkward and oppressive book solves anything. I just don't.
© 2017 by Tom King
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