The Pragmatist's Guide #4
The Pragmatist’s Guide to Crafting Religion: A playbook for sculpting cultures that overcome demographic collapse & facilitate long-term human flourishing
Simone Collins, Malcolm Collins
4.35
889 ratings7 reviews
Want to read
Buy on Kobo
Rate this book
Humanity consists of coevolving software (our religion and culture), firmware (our hardcoded proclivities, such as language acquisition), and hardware (our brains). Ripping out a third of the equation has led to innumerous unintended—and typically negative—consequences. This book offers a guide to rebuilding or fortifying this increasingly neglected aspect of the human condition. Specifically, The Pragmatist’s Guide to Crafting Religion serves as a playbook for those looking to strengthen traditional cultures in the face of collapsing birth rates or craft entirely new cultures designed to impart strategic advantages to adherents. Should You Read This Book?
483 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 17, 2023
Book details & editions
4.35
889 ratings7 reviews
5 stars
421 (47%)
4 stars
402 (45%)
3 stars
29 (3%)
2 stars
27 (3%)
1 star
10 (1%)
Search review text
Filters
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
Zachary Tedesco
38 reviews · 1 follower
Follow
May 4, 2023
I didn't agree with everything said in the book, but there are a lot of good ideas here that can be replicated in your own home.
71 likes
Like
Comment
Enriquezfkylie
15 reviews
Follow
June 20, 2023
Great
22 likes
Like
Comment
Grady
52 books · 1,872 followers
Follow
June 1, 2023
‘Exploring the value of cultural and religious traditions’ - Profound and entertaining!
Authors Simone and Malcolm Collins as a couple promote ‘pronatalism,’ the idea of having more children to combat ‘fertility collapse.’ They founded The Collins Institute, working with Teach for America’s Reinvention Lab helping visionary entrepreneurs and leaders reinvent or dramatically improve the American education system. Their Pragmatist’s Guide series challenges readers to pause, think, consider, and motivate change - personally and culturally. This fifth volume opens with a ‘warning’ - ‘This book will be wildly offensive to most people…Within it you will find a heavily annotated playbook for constructing a cultural/religious framework optimized to preserve (rather than erase) the individual traditions, values, and worldviews of those who join while maximizing autonomy and individual efficacy…useful to those who want to build a family culture that is intergenerationally durable.’
Given that excitement generating ‘warning,’ the authors survey morality, spirituality, cultural language, sexuality, dating, marriage contracts, gender roles, etc, focusing on the now social media hyped falling birthrate and consequences as affected by culture. ‘Biological evolution provides some basic coding, much like a low-level programming language might for a given hardware, whereas cultural evolution manipulates the high-level, object-oriented code that lets us program highly nuanced behaviors.’ The content is turgid at times, but at all times spiced with wry wit and humor, a factor that makes reading the book intoxicating and magnetizing. Both intelligent and stimulating, this book is a must read for all those who ponder evolutionary progress. Highly recommended.
I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book
76 likes
Like
Comment
Andrew Carpenter
5 reviews · 1 follower
Follow
June 15, 2023
The Pragmatist’s Guide to Crafting Religion: A Playbook for sculpting cultures that overcome demographic collapse & facilitate long-term human flourishing (The Pragmatist's Guide 5) Book 5 of 5: The Pragmatist's Guide | by Simone Collins and Malcolm Collins. Simone and Malcolm Collins delve into a pressing question of our era: how can we preserve cultural and religious practices for a brighter tomorrow? Alarming societal norms, including declining fertility rates, threaten our institutions and may lead to economic collapse. The Collins' research reveals surprising predictors of above-replacement fertility levels, such as tribalism and dogmatism, posing challenges to Western liberalism. They discuss various cultural types and highlight the threat of a "supervirus" that undermines institutions. Engaging personal anecdotes, pop culture references, and exploration of diverse aspects of culture make this an essential read. Brace yourself for their audacious vision of the future. Highly recommend it for an incredibly thoughtful and interesting read.
44 likes
Like
Comment
Tanu
339 reviews · 354 followers
Follow
June 10, 2023
Not necessarily everything discussed in the book needs to be agreed upon but definitely worth giving a thought.
The Pragmatist's Guide to Crafting Religion by Simone and Malcolm Collins offers a thought-provoking exploration of the value of cultural and religious traditions. The authors skillfully argue that neglecting this aspect of the human condition has resulted in unintended and often harmful consequences. Their book serves as a playbook for fortifying traditional cultures in the face of declining birth rates or creating new cultures that provide strategic advantages to adherents. The authors promote pronatalism and inspire readers to pause, think, and motivate change on both personal and cultural levels.
Grab your copy here.
my-view
6 likes
Like
Comment
Liliyana Shadowlyn
2,308 reviews · 68 followers
Follow
June 19, 2023
The blurb intrigued me, but I don’t entirely know how I feel about this book yet. I think I’ll probably end up re-reading it, and letting my brain mull over everything presented a bit longer. It is well-written, and presented decently, but the concepts are a bit odd to me. I’m giving this four stars because it was so well-written, and even though the topics get quite deep, it’s not very hard to read, even if I’m not entirely sure if I agree with everything said. I have a feeling the target audience for this is more conservative than I am, but I can’t find fault with the writing. Just be warned, if you lean more liberal, you may not enjoy reading this.
2023-reads
21 likes
Like
Comment
Fearless Leader
191 reviews
Follow
April 20, 2023
The Collins’ identify the problem with declining global fertility rates but their solution is greatly lacking.
biology-psychology sociology
