Howard BloomCritiques

A sprawling, playful, sometimes quixotic exploration of how our DNA has manifested -- necessarily, Bloom argues -- capitalism. Rather than arguing the relative merits and pitfalls in the system or pitting it against socialism -- a tired matchup these days -- he shows the psychological, sociological, even genetic and physical origins of the economic system that arguably dominates the globe. The book closes with an impassioned plea for those who have benefited most from the capitalist system to use their bounty to help those who are the least among us. Setting aside my personal bias against capitalism gone wild and my prejudice against libertarianism, the book is a rollicking read and makes its points with a great deal of joy.

Bad writing, outdated. The bibliography is large but generally obsolete by 2023.½

In between ravings about homoeopathy and inaccurate descriptions of what a neural net is and what it can do the book is just a random hotchpotch of musings with no clear aim. Not sure what the message is but the author sure tries to hammer it home by repeating himself ad nauseam. It's like listening in to a pub conversation. You are drunk Mr Bloom, go home.

Lucifer Principle Drinking Game:
Drink every time you read "pecking order" or "superorganism".
If you see "superorganismic pecking order" down your drink.

This book was interesting, but it really didn't explain away all of my questions in the overall narrative. Early on in the book, Bloom tells us that "we" either some character or himself was born in 1943, disbelieved in God and all of this various stuff. Maybe I am stupid, but I wanted to know who he was talking about. I did like the book, but many times it jumps around and I felt like I was reading Gravity's Rainbow.

The overall thesis of the book seemed to be that human beings as a group undergo paradigm shifts of thought spurred on by certain individuals. These paradigm shifts establish new patterns and modes of thought that people train themselves to see. As a side note, Bloom is a good story teller. He takes threads of ideas and weaves them together into a whole narrative.

What does Bloom even talk about? Well first off, take the Babylonians. They split the circle into 360 degrees right? Wrong. Apparently, the Babylonians didn't have a concept for the idea of an angle as we know it now. They had remarkable skills in arithmetic, and used tables to shorten the time it took to collect taxes; multiplication tables, but that was all they did. Sure, they had a name for a load of grain, and could imagine a representation of some land as a drawing on a clay tablet. They thought that the sky was flat, though, represented in their thought processes as a ceiling to a room. This limited their thinking to a certain set of symbols. The reason was this; their mythology had declared that Marduk took this giant she-beast monstrosity, Tiamut(his spelling not mine), and ripped her in half, using one half to make the Earth and the other half for the Sky. This image representation lasted for the culture of the Babylonians and was quite pervasive. Thus, they did not think of the sky as being a wheel or a great sphere or whatever.

As it just so happened, most of the people that established the current paradigm were people like Aristotle and Plato, Euclid and Einstein. Aristotle established a mode of thinking that lasted for centuries, the syllogism and deductive logic. From this came the basis of all of the science we use today. Euclid set up the Elements. The most famous printed material after the Bible for centuries. And it pervaded the thoughts of men. Now he did not invent these axioms, but he set it up in such a manner that it was preferable to use his book over those of his rivals. That is another theme.

Take Einstein for instance. He didn't invent any of the stuff that he formulated. It was there in the open, waiting for someone to weave the threads together. Einstein was just the kind of guy that looked outside the box and set axioms on their heads.

The last thing is that complex things can arise from simple rules. Bloom repeats this a lot too, but it does hold true. Repetition and iteration are pretty powerful things when they are done many times. The examples that stick out to me are Conway's Game of Life and the Mandelbrot Set. Although they are established by simple rules, you can get some really fascinating and unpredictable behavior from it.

So we don't really get to the answer of "The God Problem," but it was really interesting and enjoyable nonetheless.

The evolution of mass mind from the big bang to the 21st century

Wow...Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything meets Cecil B. DeMille ("Then came the really big stretch. The stretch beyond sanity. The stretch that translates from one medium to another. The stretch that Leonardo made. The stretch to metaphor. The stretch from water to light.")

Bloom wrapped a tremendous amount of history, knowledge, speculation and conclusions into a tome. It's quite readable, but I don't know that he'll convert anyone. Readers might want to try Lawrence Krause's A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing for a physicist's take on the matter.

Recommended if only for the stunning amount of reference material cited.

A really insightful and intriguing look at human nature.

It is amazing what a person can get away with under the pretense of science. Mr. Bloom certainly evinces his bigotry of Islam, the "Islamic world" and Arabs under the guise science. The Lucifer Principle is merely a vehicle to support a political agenda disguised as science. This is not too surprising since it comes from a political writer.

To extrapolate societal and human behavior from animal behaviour is a large logical leap that can't be proved, but merely inferred. While genetics influences behaviour, within a species, it is questionable whether it carries over to other species higher up the phylogenetic scale, and certainly to humans, where geography, environment and culture play a big role in behavior. Thus, Bloom’s assertion that what is observed in lower phyla directly contributes to killer cultures of the Islamic world.

Show me the data? Regarding killer cultures, Bloom spends significant page space to point out that Arabs by nature have a blood lust, and that Islam justifies the blood lust. Are there not other killer cultures? What about violence in Norse culture, Aryan culture, Mongol culture, and now American culture? How about in his own Jewish culture? Certainly the Old Testament is replete with genocide, justified as God’s will and sanction for the Israelites.

Both Arabs and Jews descend from the same father, Abraham. If violence is in the genes, as Bloom argues, then why are Jews exculpated from possessing a killer culture, but Arabs are not? Certainly history has shown the old kings of Judaism wiped out whole tribes for not believing in the same God as them (see Karen Armstrong's Holy War). But forget about the past, we only need to look at America, coming off of the Newtown, CT tragedy. Despite the mass slaughter of children, we as a society are not willing to give up our “right to carry” military assault rifles for hunting and self-protection. I would submit that more people were killed in America by domestic abuse, homicide, drugs, and other forms of violence than by Islamic terrorists. In fact more civilian people in Pakistan (30,000) have been killed by America since 9/11 than actual Americans killed from 9/11.

Bloom asserts that Islamic cultures in particular glorify violence, yet how much violence is depicted in our most prevelant cultural medium, television? We glorify violence. This nation was built on violence (ask the American Indian, or the Black man-see Howard Zinn's A Peoples History of the US) and we promote violence through TV-here's a meme for you. And despite this violence, we export it to the third world, whether they like it or not (see Ben Barber's Jihad vs. McWorld).

Bloom asserts that Islamic fundamentalism/terrorism is the consequence of one meme "nibbling at the flesh" of other cultures. Yet the violence of American cultural meme has had a far more pernicious effect on the Islamic world than the Islamic world on the West. So which superorganism "nibbles at the flesh" of which superorganism?


The author faults Muslim’s for reacting to European invasion during the Crusades citing it as an example typifying Muslim behavior. Islamic distrust of European culture (whether from the Crusades or European colonialism) is therefore over-reaction.

The Crusades, after all, was really about Christian Europeans reclaiming what was rightfully theirs. Regardless of the fact Europeans are from Europe, they have superior claim to the Middle East because Christianity and Judaism arose out of the Middle-East. Well, where did Islam arise from? Europe?

Bloom cannot excuse the Crusades as an attempt at reinstituting "Western" values in a region that was formerly Christian. And I am not sure what Western values Christians were inculcating since they slaughtered the Jews when they took Jerusalem, and sacked Constantinople during the Crusades. Or the fact that Constantinople beseeched the Muslims of Egypt for aid against European Franks. Conflating Christianity with Western-secular values is erroneous. Christian Arabs are culturally equivalent Muslim Arabs, eating and dressing the same, speaking the same language (and even referring to God as Allah). Similarly, Bloom cannot excuse the racist mentality of European colonials in the Middle East and the Indian Subcontinent – yet he does. The complete subjugation, denigration, and massacre of whole populations in Algeria, India-Pakistan, the Levant warrants the ire by these peoples towards the European colonials.

People seem to get all upset when Muslims try to acknowledge their cultural heritage and value sets; perceiving as expressing fundamentalist beliefs. They fear the Islamic meme will overtake America. Despite such absurdities, we continue to pass anti-Sharia laws, block the building of mosques and cultural centers (like the Ground Zero “mosque”, produce truly hateful and bigoted videos against Muslims, and even books like the instant one, to keep a meme of fear and distrust alive. I would argue this type of meme is just as insidious as any killer culture meme.

I don't disagree that virulent memes spread across religions, and Islam certainly has its share. But so do all other religions. Singling out one religion and one broad set of people (Muslims, Arabs, etc. to the exclusion of the rest of humanity is misleading and intellectually dishonest. I think Howard Bloom just does not like Muslims and Islam, and thats okay, but he should have the honesty to apply his logic universally, not just to the group he does not like.

An interesting historical and social explanation for the concept of "evil". I'm still not entirely sure I'm on board with the type of biological fatalism argued for by Bloom, though in saying that it is certainly a powerful and compelling argument that cannot be easily knocked down.

In Brief: I enjoyed Bloom's premise and the ideas he set forth, although I can't share his enthusiasm.

What I Didn't Care For: The style in which this book was written became tedious after a few hundred pages. I don't fault Bloom for his enthusiasm but the constant repetition (doubtless done for effect and, if I were being charitable, for thematic resonance) grates on the writer in me.

There were some issues with the argument presented here. While I am personally enchanted by the same thoughts of unity and emergence that drive Bloom, I am less convinced by the specifics of his argument. The philosophical idealism I am attracted to (which started with Plato, ran through Spinoza's panpsychism and Leibniz's rationalism before reaching a zenith in Hegel) is, to be frank, kooky by my own admission. I like the idea for what it implies, but I am the first to admit that I cannot support it on strong grounds, certainly not compared to the naturalism which my pragmatic side cannot ignore.

I see threads of this trajectory in Bloom's argument, though where Hegelian thought eventually lead to Marx (and the Left's eventual realization that the dialectic was a dead end), Bloom seems to arrive at a parallel justification for modern-day ideals of liberalism and capitalism. Applying teleological arguments to history is always a dangerous proposition, more likely the benefit of hindsight and confirmation bias than a true "story of history". To be fair, Bloom does acknowledge this in the final chapter (although, perhaps predictably, ideals win out over criticism).

For an Idea Book, I don't see this as terribly problematic, but it is worth mentioning that, scientific arguments aside, this is a book on metaphysics and the true nature of reality. As a consequence, it is subject to all the same criticisms that have faced Hegel and other forms of idealism: namely, how do we prove it? Can we prove it? Are these even questions for science to answer?

Regarding the how, I am reminded of Karl Popper's reservations with Freud and Marx, which eventually led to his famous definition of science as falsifiable conjectures. It was not the power of psychoanalysis and Marxism to explain that was in question; it was the fact that they could explain everything, without exception. While Popper was careful to note that non-scientific ideas were not invalid, it was hard to see how they could qualify as scientific. So it was with Marx, so it remains.

As for the latter question, I think that emphasizing science as the only appropriate tool to understand reality is misguided (especially if we restrict this to current science), and here I have a much deeper objection to Bloom's specific claims of anthropomorphism. Viewing the universe through a human lens is expected and, in some sense, unavoidable; I can forgive that, but I do have real concerns about the proposed *nature* of the humanity that Bloom proposes to map to universal laws (or vice versa). To treat the fundamental categories of nature as operating on notions of attraction and seduction and competition is hasty, at best, and even if we grant this argument, it is by no means clear that this is a total account of terrestrial life, let alone human action and behavior. Indeed one could easily construct a counterargument based on alternative interpretations of evolutionary theory alone, to say nothing of philosophical traditions that do not emphasize the limited set of subject-object relations taken for granted in Western (particularly American) thought.

While I am sympathetic to Bloom's desire for unity, we're treading on perilously non-scientific ground here, and we should accordingly be cautious in making claims to truth, enthusiasm notwithstanding. On that same note I would have preferred a deeper and more nuanced look at the philosophical assumptions underlying the interpretation of the scientific account of nature.

The Good: This is a big book, in ambition as well as page count, and that will always capture my sense of wonder. Bloom clearly did his research here, as attested by his formidable collection of notes spanning a range of disciplines across the history of humankind and the universe.

Even though my pragmatic side encourages restraint and my ideals conflict with Bloom's particular interpretation of the natural world, there is much to think about here and I do appreciate the larger attempt to explain how we get "something from nothing".

Overall: Whether or not Bloom succeeds in making his case is up to the reader. I didn't find myself entirely persuaded by the specifics, although I can't help but appreciate the larger argument.

On the one hand, this may be a book of staggering genius. On the other, it is tediously wordy and a major condensation would make it easier for the nonscientist, nonmathematician to understand. Ostensibly, Howard Bloom makes an argument from an atheist viewpoint for the cosmic equivalent of a spontaneously combusted universe without the helping hand of a prime mover, god or superscientist in the sky. The argument is quite persuasive although the most convincing bits are buried more than halfway through the book.

If the book is seen as a romp through the history of scientific inquiry and the development of mathematics, that's where it is most fascinating, to this reader at least. And for the literarily inclined, who knew that Herbert Spencer, George Eliot and her paramour Henry Lewes, Thomas Carlyle, William Makepeace Thackeray, Horace Greeley, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thomas Huxley and John Stuart Mill all frequented or actually lived at the house of one John Chapman, publisher of the newly launched Economist, and they all knew each other and contributed to one of the many slices of the history of science which make this book so interesting aside from and in addition to the central thesis.½

A friend of mine had read this book many years ago and when she described it to me, I thought it presented a combination of ingredients to keep me enthralled: history, biology, psychology, sociology, all tied together in terms easy to understand for a layperson like me. Very quickly it became evident that the research Bloom was quoting from had the sole purpose of backing up his own agenda, but curiosity kept me reading on to find out what foregone conclusion he was leading us to. After all, most everyone knows that research can be used to 'prove' just about anything, depending on the bias of the researchers and/or by the ability of the writer to quote facts out of context as suits his needs. I did not appreciate Bloom's almost exclusively American point of view, whether pro or con, and was especially offended to find that all this led to a condemnation of Islam and all who ascribe to that faith, including those with moderate or pro-Western philosophies. The culmination of all this, that the next frontiers to battle over will be interplanetary ones, made me think this man had probably watched too much Star Trek and X-Files. In fact, I believe that Bloom ever the PR man, had attempted to create his own self-propagating meme in the writing and publication of this book by appealing to his target audience's own fears and propensities for readily believing in conspiracy theories and other half-baked half-truths.

I had been initially interested to read about the phenomena of memes, and now wonder whether Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene might satisfy my curiosity in a more substantial way or whether it was written with a similar lack of scruples and objectivity. One thing's for sure, I'll be reading reviews by those least satisfied with it first before deciding to spend any time or money on it.½

I had recently read another of Blooms works, and took some time off before reading this one. I was under the impression that it would be more focused on the internet age (it was written in 2002) but in fact focuses more on a historical and biological evolution of global consciousness. As always Bloom provides copious references, footnotes and the like (about 1/3 of the actual book volume). It was a good read, if a little detail-heavy at times, and I like where he ended up. Worth reading if only for historical lessons in biology and sociology.

This was one of those books that I spent a good amount of time feeling like I'd read before, as it echos feelings and beliefs that I've developed independently. The first part of the book lays out some interesting theory about memes and the social organism and effectively maps the Darwinian struggle for survival to societies as a whole. The second half read as an impeachment of both Islamic and to a lesser degree American society, and while the events of 9/11/2001 certainly contribute an interesting light to the arguments they came off rather ethnocentric. I am excited to read his later works as the frontier he recommends for global unity (space) is likely replaced by the development of the internet and it's unifying forces. Definitely recommended!!

As with all of his books - everyone should read this one. But, as with all his books, I have the impression that he is capable of much more.

I expected to find this work fascinating, right up my alley, blah blah, etc. Instead, I was immediately put off by Bloom's self-aggrandization, and then bored by his essays. I couldn't get through the book. I've been reading and thinking about the biological bases of human behavior for a few decades, so I felt overcome by unoriginality.

BTW, the folks at Wikipedia think that he wrote his own entry.

David Sloan Wilson, in the foreward, says Bloom is "an intellectual, originally trained in science, who decided to avoid the limitations of an academic career...." In other words, he was a smart kid who dropped out of college, made a bunch of money (in PR), and became an autodidact (i.e. he educated himself by reading a lot). It shows. Some of his ideas are really pop science, and like many people who have a hard time dealing with the oft-times plodding nature of real science, he can't pick the conceptual wheat from the chaff. He likes the breadth of ideas, not the depth. (No Darwin he.)

These drawbacks might be seen as assets to another reader, however. You just have to remember that these essays are highly speculative and deal with concepts that aren't exactly scientific.

I have a lot of time on my hands. Maybe I'll give it another shot and revise my opinions.

True - it is not deep in sources but it is a very good read with some interesting ideas in it. i would not pass it up - unless you are trying to use it as a source for a thesis paper. Other than that - have fun with it!

It is poorly researched, not very scientific and often inaccurate.
However, it is very provocative.
Sort of a deathmetal meets E! meets Dawkins.
Great starter sort of book to get people to then read real books.

Thought provoking and fascinating. Howard Bloom's work is really unique. I like the way he explains and uses the concept of memes and, though he takes a lot of flak for it, I think he may be onto something with his ideas of group selection.

This is the most poorly researched book I've ever read. A smart-aleck whiz-kid rock promoter takes a couple weeks to misread whole genres of science, then assembles a whiny diatribe against everything that bugs him. Each chapter is about 3 pages long and makes huge leaps of logic to connect completely unrelated ideas out of thin air, pretending that one proves the other. Good thing he has a massive ego, otherwise I'm sure he'd be utterly embarrassed. (I wonder if he still thinks Michael Jackson is the paradigmatic family man, 10 years after writing this?)

If you'd rather get your science from scientists insteaf of grumpy ex-rock promoters, read Richard Dawkins, Richard Wright or Steven Pinker instead.½