Mania

[desecration]

A review of Mania by Lionel Shriver on RCB:

Mania is set in an alternate-history 2010s, where a new movement called Mental Parity (MP) sweeps across the Western world, a movement that declares that there are no differences in intelligence between people. This mania took over the West shortly after the publication of a bestselling book titled The Calumny of I.Q.: Why Discrimination Against ‘Dumb People’ Is the Last Great Civil Rights Fight, an obvious allusion to the “do-the-work-and-educate-yourself-you-bigot” books that were ubiquitous during our own manias of the last few years. (Another book is titled How to Be an Anti-Smartist, drawing direct parallel to the real-life book How to Be an Antiracist.)

The MP movement quickly captures all of America’s institutions. Aptitude and IQ tests are banned. Schools are forced to dumb everything down—the word dumb is banned, along with any word that might imply a difference in intelligence, including stupid, idiot, wise, and dense. Even using dim in the context of low lighting is banned; one has to say “poorly illuminated,” and dimmer switch becomes “knob that raises or lowers how seeable everything is.” Movies and TV shows that depict vast differences in intelligence, like Rain Man and Sherlock, are banned. Anyone who refuses to go along with the MP movement is labeled a “smartist” and immediately socially ostracized. Multiple real-life events play out differently: Osama bin Laden fails to be assassinated due to intelligence failures (pun not intended), and Barack Obama only manages one term as president because he was too eloquent for the populace to accept, with Biden replacing him after the 2012 election.

Sounds like a crossover between "Harrison Bergeron," Idiocracy, Demolition Man, and Logan's Run.

 

[ll74]

Wrong forum

 

[desecration]

Wrong forum

I disagree. This is obviously a very political book.

 

[ll74]

I disagree. This is obviously a very political book.

You're allowed to be wrong.

This isn't a book review forum.

Maybe request that they add a book club forum for you