Not All Dead White Men

💯 This book is wonderfully researched. The subject matter was darker than I expected from the playful nature of the title and the book cover. I walked away from this book with a stack of notes, a few things I'd like to read to supplement the material covered in the book and a better understanding of the alt-right than I was prepared for. 

😐 As a fan of Stoic authors like Aurelius, Seneca and Epictetus, it was difficult to hear how their intent has been grossly misinterpreted. This book was worthwhile for the critical examination of Stoic thought and the reminder of the perils possible when attempting a poorly informed interpretation of ancient thought for the modern world. 

🦋 The book was heavy on “this is the problem” and very light on “and here's what can be done about it”. As a result: by the end of the book, the reader is left feeling that the future is a bit bleak.

⚠️ TW: Some of the descriptions in the book are very graphic. Read with care.

This is a carefully written, thoroughly researched look into how ideas are disseminated (and around them communities formed) on social media. Zuckerberg discusses a specific—though hardly harmonious—community: the manosphere. Many subgroups fall under this umbrella: men's rights activists (MRAs), pickup artists (PUAs), Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW), incels, the Alt-Right, etc.

Within in the manosphere there is much overlap, but also much conflict. Zuckerberg argues that the strongest commonality is antifeminism. Not All Dead White Men looks at how members of the manosphere invoke ancient Greece and Rome to justify their worldview.

The contradictions fracturing the manosphere really interested me. The manosphere men hate women and especially feminism, but sometimes they get in their own way trying to do both at once.
For example, most adopt an essentialist view of gender. They argue women have certain innate traits, and those traits cause societal ills. But they also argue that social progressivism and especially feminism are responsible for societal ills. Which is it? Does feminism turn women bad, or are women irrevocably bad?

In a sense, it doesn't really matter, because their solution in either case is to disempower women. And I think that's a central takeaway: the manosphere can fiddle with framing and cherry pick ancient texts all they want, but ultimately, they aspire and feel entitled to control women.

When they don't get to control women (for example, if a woman rejects their advances), they get angry. But they draw on warped Stoicism to reclassify that anger as rationality, and in fact, rationality of a caliber exclusive to their demographic. It's a horrifying cocktail.

As a whole, Not All Dead White Men is equal parts fascinating and disturbing. Zuckerberg draws attention to a salient contemporary issue, and does so with a lot of context and nuance. However, it's pretty dense, so getting through it wasn't exactly a blast. I would read this if you have prior interest in and knowledge about the topic. It's not an accessible primer on feminism, antifeminism, communication in the digital age, or any combination of the three.