2 out of 4 stars
Share This Review
Being born and raised in America, it's easy to get swept up in the "we're number one!" mentality. I've often heard that people from other countries think very differently about America, and I've certainly got my fair share of qualms with the good ol' USA, but I never would have imagined some of the things our country does. To Argue Logically or With Heart by Dr. Saida Seddik is an insightful, non-fiction, philosophical book that discusses the importance of keeping the environment healthy, equality, peace, Islam and the evils of capitalism and neocolonialism all within less than 80 pages!
I ended up learning a lot from Dr. Saida Seddik, particularly about the influences of capitalism and the misconceptions of Islam the media brandies about. She covers numerous subjects, bouncing between them frequently, but these are the two main subjects that she always returns to. I learned that Islam faces as many problems within their own Muslim countries as it does abroad, for example, and Dr. Saida Seddik even says that "of all the major religions, Islam focuses most on human rights." This is a stark contrast to what the media often says, and the insight is really enlightening!
Even more shocking, however, are her insights into capitalism and neocolonialism in particular. She defines neocolonialism as the "imperial system of economic exploitation, in which the metropolitan center drains the resources of the periphery while at the same time encouraging it to consume its manufactured products in an unequal, unbalanced system of exchange." It sounds like a parasite! And yet this is how the USA is being defined, in that the USA feeds off of third world and smaller countries, keeping them down and drawing on their resources (like oil). I'd also frequently heard that ISIS was created by our government, and Dr. Saida Seddik gives further examples of how that came to be. She makes great points about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that the UN uses from after WWII as well. There's a list of the articles in it, and she points out that even when those things are broken no action is taken. This is something we see even more of today with the civilian killing, hospital bombing and destruction in Syria.
The problem, however, is in the consistency of the book. It really felt like more than one person authored it at times, and my only guess is that perhaps only portions of the book were professionally edited. Sometimes the writing was smooth and easy to follow, even when discussing heavier subjects, and that made me feel really smart! Other times, though, there were all sorts of grammatical issues, I had trouble following along and the writing was exceptionally dry. When all of these combine the book is nearly unreadable and I had to re-read numerous paragraphs over and over before giving up and moving on. This is especially true of subjects I was less familiar with - the more in-depth political talk and Islamic topics especially. Dr. Saida Seddik has a way of forgetting to define terms in these portions of the book sometimes, so I was forced to dive into subjects that have entire books based on them to figure out what exactly was being said. This is a shame as the book is well-researched and the smoother portions are excellent; Dr. Saida Seddik uses over 80 references from other sources throughout the book (that's an average of more than one per page!) and she really shows some great potential in the smoother portions of the book.
Unfortunately, the way the book currently is, I can only recommend it to those who are very interested (and knowledgeable) about politics and/or Islam. For everyone else, without a lot of editing and some extra details, it's a tough read. It easily took me two or three times longer than it should have to get through and I didn't even end up absorbing everything no matter how hard I tried. As such, my official rating of To Argue Logically or With Heart is 2 out of 4 stars.
******
To argue Logically or with heart
View: on Bookshelves
Like CataclysmicKnight's review? Post a comment saying so!
