Along with Gabor Maté and Irvin Yalom this is one of my favorite psychology writers.

He explains how people who did not have their emotional needs met in childhood go on to shape the political landscape in a very negative way.

The way out of this mess would be to raise children with more genuine care and a lot less self-serving expectations.

I would say he basically argues that the way people grow up makes them incompatible with a democratic system.

If we want to improve our democracy we need to start raising our children differently.

This book digs deep, very deep.

My only problem with it is that he tries to categorize people and linking that outcome to the behavior of either the father or the mother.

I think reality is even more complex and that trying to categorize people according to how they experience and react to the world and why is tricky.

There are some general categorizations I do accept as reflecting reality. Like some people care more deeply about facts than about emotions. Or some people value bonding with others more than acquiring things, but you can’t sum up billions of people in any categories that defines every individual.

What I absolutely believe he is right about is that we are raising people that do not meet the requirements to have a healthy democracy.

Why that is, is very fascinating, but worthy of a separate blog post.