I’ve mentioned this before in my review of Naomi Klein’s This Changes Everything. If there is an area where The Divide falls down it is in the same areas that many progressive books do. Before long it became semi-fashionable to dunk on Pinker, even Oxfam got in on the act.* That was when I came across some posts from Jason and Jeremy Lent. As much as I’m not a fan of the bloviating Nassim Taleb, his points were the first to make me reassess just accepting the merchants of the status quo’s narrative.
I first became interested in Hickel’s writing after seeing Steven Pinker’s “Everything is Fine” arguments being challenged by Taleb, Hickel, Giridharadas, and Lent. Too many of the “facts” often lack the context that Hickel brings into play in The Divide. It skewered many of the “good news” narratives that (sometimes) well-meaning intellectuals broadcast about progress and inequality. Hickel covers how this happened, how it continues, and outlines paths forward that don’t involve growing the global GDP (consumption) by 175 times. We created the systems, stole the wealth, marginalised the peoples, and dropped a whole lot of freedom bombs when anyone tried to get out from under our thumbs. The Divide attempts to help everyone understand that inequality has been made and entrenched by us in rich nations (global North). The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions by Jason Hickel
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