The Infinite Game: Difference between revisions

Jump to navigation Jump to search
no edit summary
No edit summary
Tags: Mobile edit Mobile web edit
No edit summary
Tags: Mobile edit Mobile web edit
Line 1: Line 1:
{{a|book review|{{br|The Infinite Game}} by {{author|Simon Sinek}} }}The [[JC]] is indebted to  TED-talker extraordinaire {{author|Simon Sinek}} for the TED talk which introduced him to {{author|James P. Carse}}’s obscure but brilliant book {{br|Finite and Infinite Games}}, which provides the basic idea this, Sinek’s own book, {{br|The Infinite Game}}. But, alas, “basic” idea is right: Carse’s hypothesis is subtle, deep and many-splendoured. Its ideas continue to unfold on you, kind their own infinite game, months after you first ingest them.  
{{a|book review|{{br|The Infinite Game}} by {{author|Simon Sinek}} }}The [[JC]] is indebted to  TED-talker extraordinaire {{author|Simon Sinek}} for the TED talk which introduced him to {{author|James P. Carse}}’s obscure but brilliant book {{br|Finite and Infinite Games}}, which provides the basic idea for this, Sinek’s own take on the subject.  


Sinek’s reading, where it understands Carse at all, is superficial and monochromatic. But mostly, Sinek misses Sinek’s point altogether, and reads it as a kind of lumpen social democratic tract, which it absolutely is not. In his reading Sinek managez also to misrepresent [[Adam Smith]], [[Shareholder capitalism]], [[Evolution by natural selection]], [[Friedrich Nietzsche]] and, most egregiously of all poor old Milton Friedman, whom Sinek paints as a kind if Randian Gorgon; something he emphatically was not.
Alas, “basic” idea, in more ways than one: Carse’s hypothesis is subtle, deep and many-splendoured. Its ideas continue to unfold on you, kind their own infinite game, months after you first ingest them.
 
Would that you could say the same about Sinek’s book. No such luck. Where Sinek understands Carse at all, he does so superficially and in a flat monochrome. But that isn't often. Mostly, Sinek misses Carse’s point altogether, and presents “finite mindsets” and “infinite mindsets” mutually-exclusive negative and positive moral values, and hence delivers a glib, lumpen social democratic tract, which is not Carse’s industry at all.  
 
Sinek manages also to misrepresent [[Adam Smith]], [[Shareholder capitalism]], [[Evolution by natural selection]], [[Friedrich Nietzsche]] and, most egregiously of all poor old Milton Friedman, whom Sinek paints as a kind of selfish Gorgon; something he emphatically was not.
 
Now Carse’s book is elegant but gnomic. It asks careful reading and, as you’d expect of an infinite game asks, the reader to work hard. But it rewards effort in a way that Sinek ’s superficial reading will not.
 
The greatest tragedy will be if Sinek Congress to wipe


Anecdotal, and ironically historical — it is very easy reconstruct an “infinite mindset” from a completed story. Not so easy to predict one.
Anecdotal, and ironically historical — it is very easy reconstruct an “infinite mindset” from a completed story. Not so easy to predict one.

Navigation menu