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Arguing for a Better World

How to Talk About the Issues That Divide Us

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Arguing for a Better World

By: Arianne Shahvisi
Narrated by: Arianne Shahvisi
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About this listen

An antidote to division: a book that arms you with the ability to build good arguments and find a path through conflict and confusion.

Can you be racist to a white person?

Does cancel culture exist?

Is it ever okay to laugh at jokes that rely on racist, sexist or homophobic stereotypes?

Is it sexist to say 'men are trash'?

These questions tap into some of today's most divisive issues, and finding an answer can often lead to confusion and resentment.

Political and generational divides often dictate how questions such as these are answered, and when asked most people give automatic answers that roughly align with the broader position they believe is right - though many flounder when asked to detail their reasoning. This creates cultural and political tribes, makes people nervous about engaging at all, or leads to the issues to be trivialised or attributed to the excessive sensitivity of 'snowflakes' to 'identity politics'.

Arguing for a Better World cuts right to the heart of these tensions, with the aim of demonstrating the importance of rigorous definitions and distinctions, revealing the arguments that break the stalemates, and equipping listeners with the tools to identify and defend their positions. Drawing on Shahvisi's work as a philosopher, and using live controversies, well-known case studies, and personal anecdotes, this audiobook reveals and analyses the power relations that shape our social world, and offers powerful ways to challenge them.

©2023 Arianne Shahvisi (P)2023 Hodder & Stoughton Limited
Gender Studies Racism & Discrimination Society Funny
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Critic reviews

Often entertaining and funny; always concise, exacting, logical, readable, authoritative and un-put-downable. An everyday manual on how oppression came about, how it works, why it persists, and how to defeat it (Danny Dorling, author of Injustice: Why Social Inequality Still Persists and A Better Politics)
We live in an age of information overload, and unfortunately, 'information' is often misinformation. We often don't know how to think about social problems, let alone what to think. Arianne Shahvisi's book cuts through the noise with an eminently sensible discussion of key contemporary 'culture war' issues. It shows us how philosophy, far from being irrelevant, is essential for navigating today's world of client journalism-manufactured, social media-manipulated outrage. It also provides much-needed reassurance that in the struggle to create a better world, being able to 'show our workings' is much more important than always being right (ALISON PHIPPS, author of Me, Not You: The Trouble with Mainstream Feminism)
Shahvisi is a bold and necessary new literary voice whose work has the power to transform our world for the better (Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, author The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred)

What listeners say about Arguing for a Better World

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One of the most important books I've read

I don't usually leave reviews, but this book touched me.

As a compassionate person, I found it challenging to listen to for longer than 30 minutes at a time. The author poses her ideas so well that I feel deeply the pain we are inflicting on other humans, animals and the environment.

However this book needs to be listened to. We need to understand all the little things that we do that perpetuate social injustice.

The author doesn't allocate all responsibility to the individual, and she delves into how the social structure pushes us to do things we don't want to do.

I highly recommend this book.

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Philosophy for all

Everyone should read this clear dissection of what the culture wars and how we might use philosophy to live a better life.

Our era’s Bertrand Russell? Alain de Botton? Or something better?

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Wonderful, thought-provoking and vital

You will not finish this book without feeling in some way changed. A brilliantly written text of vital importance to understanding how we can all do better for everyone

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Not what I was expecting

Thought this would be a more objective view about the problems facing society today, but I found it a bit too opinionated for my taste. While she does ground some key statements in cited peer reviewed studies, many statements are made without any concrete research and border on opinion rather than fact. Some arguments are based on these, and I found that frustrating at times.

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