The Evolving Self: A Psychology for the Third Millennium
by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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Book Summary Information
Author: Mihaly CsikszentmihalyiEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1994-06-03
ISBN: 0060921927
Number of pages: 384
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Book Reviews of The Evolving Self: A Psychology for the Third Millennium
Book Review: Important to Read this Book
Summary: 4 Stars
"The Evolving Self" is not a typical general interest psychology book. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi puts on the philosopher hat for this book. The book takes the position that everyone needs to take responsibility for directing our future for the better. Mihaly warns that we cannot assume our civilization will always improve. He argues that the third millennium could prove to be a turning point where societal improvement will stop becoming automatic and may require we consciously direct bringing greater order to the world.
"The Evolving Self" is a heavily researched book. The book will take your mind across the span of history and cultures. In that sense, it is a joy to be exposed to all these aspects from the perspective of a psychologist (but wearing a philosopher's hat mind you).
My main criticism of "The Evolving Self" is the language used. This term meme is used through out. Meme was introduced by Richard Dawkins in 1976 and is not considered part of mainstream social science thinking. Memes are hard to wrap your head around because they treat cultural ideas almost like evolving life forms. It's a little weird and just a theory at this point, but Mihaly uses it as the foundation to how we can direct our own evolution. Other language that is a bit weird is "entropy" and "complexity". We want our actions to not increase entropy and increase complexity. This is kind of abstract and not as inspiring as it could be when we are really just talking about trying to make the world a better place.
The part of the book I was really looking forward to is the early part of the book. Mihaly teased of covering the new field of evolutionary psychology. Evolutionary psychology attempts to explain our current day psychological traits as the output of evolutionary natural selection over thousands of years. This stuff I dig, but the coverage on evolutionary psychology is quite limited.
I still highly recommend "The Evolving Self". When I finished the book, I paused to think about how I could do my part to "increase complexity". I was glad for all the things Mihaly exposed me to in his book and for making me feel the importance of making a difference.
"The Evolving Self" was published in 1993. I would love to hear what Mihaly thinks of the direction we have gone from 1993 to 2009. This book was written before ubiquitous video game playing, excessive multitasking, email overload, anxiety from 9/11, and collapse of the financial system from completely legal parasitic behavior. Does Mihaly think in the last 16 years we have allowed better opportunity for flow? Are we going in the direction he would desire? Or is society making distraction and unchecked parasitic behavior an easier choice and meaningful flow a harder choice? Flow is central to his arguments. Flow is necessary for this self evolution. I think reading "The Evolving Self" is even more important than it was in 1993. On the whole, I recommend this book.
Summary of The Evolving Self: A Psychology for the Third Millennium
The author of the bestselling Flow (more than 125,000 copies sold) offers an intelligent, inspiring guide to life in the future.
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