Reviews for The inner world of the middle-aged man

The average rating for The inner world of the middle-aged man based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-01-19 00:00:00 Joshua Tate Midpoint review: Goldberg seems intent on selling the reader that his "limitations theory" is transcendent of every other discipline (or a conglomeration of them all, like a religion of sorts). This is interesting, since Goldberg's only background is sociologist, and for all his emphasis on science, this barely qualifies. In the end, his theory is merely: It was, so it shall be. Women were subservient (except when they were not, which Goldberg ignores), because a. they must be, or b. they were stupid. Apparently social, cultural, religious, economic, survival or emotional reasons, as well as familial attachment, fear of alienation/persecution/homelessness, lack of education, accepted norms, and even Stockholm Syndrome-esque sympathies are just that easy to ignore. But, after all, Goldberg transcends all intellectual thought. Otherwise, Goldberg asserts that women have more power in their role, which is to "get by" men through their feminine wiles, and if allowed to compete on "male ground" with "male rules" they will lose power. After all, female power is entirely limited to the home -except when women get along just fine and/or excel on "male ground", but this is safely ignored (and never defined). Furthermore, Goldberg makes excellent use of straw men. Feminists, he exclaims, demand that women be considered the same body type as men. Also, Feminists do not argue that women "get" men to fight for them in war, and are more likely to point out that women didn't start the wars to begin with. This also ignores female admittance into the military at all and those who "snuck in" and excelled". For all Goldberg's alleged love of science, he forgets his scientific inquiry into this subject. If we grant his suppositions, he makes sense, but we may only grant these if we forget about empirical reality, history and the entire body of feminist work, (aka attack a straw man). Otherwise, he works from the assumption that women's roles are universally the same, and this is empirically untrue. See: Ashley Montagu (anthropologist). Of course, Goldberg doesn't care about that, because he states that whatever goes against his theory is work for those sociologists, anthropologists, economists, etc…, and his theory is somehow above these. Ignoring the opposition is Goldberg's favorite tactic. But, very little of this book is actually devoted to Goldberg's quixotic attack on imaginary monsters. Most of the book is filled with passages to remind readers that this is a book, and we will be reading about gender issues in it; Goldberg likes science; if you're a feminist, you'll be biased and not take his work seriously; theories are vulnerable and persuasive (he cannot say this enough); and, of course, many lines about what it is he is writing the book about (in case you didn't read the title). The writing is full of pseudo-philosophical clichés, with every "thought" replaced by "line of reasoning", every word coupled with a synonym, and a mysterious "those to whom ideas are central to existence" presiding over the whole affair. Goldberg believes in using the same word as many times as possible, often repeating entire passages, which makes sense when a philosopher is breaking down categories and does not when a sociologist is writing an essay and not breaking down anything. His repetition is just redundant ("…factors that differ from one society to another in order to discover differing etiologies of differing institutions…"). And, of course, we have all of the "hereins" and "ipso factos" that any pseudo-philosopher could desire! Not to mention strange, amorphous "factions" and "factors" and "areas", all distinct from "components" and "parts", which have no definition, but are clearly studied by SOMEONE and therefore important. And, let's not forget the mysterious passive sentences, deflecting the identity of the subject. Just who believes what? We don't know. The sentences conceal in their passive voice just as a charlatan may conceal with smoke and mirrors. Which, frankly, is what Goldberg is. He's creating explosions of wordiness, sparkles of passivity, pulling straw men straight out of the air and sawing them in two, shrouding his basic thesis of "this was, always, and so it must be, always, because… I said so!" in the aura of intellectualism with his expanse of wordiness, piles of strangely pedestrian clichés, and his fondness (or, as he would say, "penchant") for long sentences. (Look, I can do it, too!) But, in the end, there is nothing left but an angry-looking little man with bad hair and a strange desire to maintain the alleged inevitability of an allegedly inevitable cause (which seems a little pointless, with all this inevitability floating around). It really begs the question: why? And, while I know he's trying (and failing) at speaking collectively, I can't help but wonder what THE biological difference between genders is. Apparently, out of chromosomes, mammary glands, vaginas, uteruses, and so on, only one is unique to women. This seems to say more about the author than anything else.

Review # 2 was written on 2015-02-25 00:00:00 Jalal H Qazzaz Completely destroys feminist theory. It is unbiased, well-reasoned, and logically air tight. Excellent work!