On Becoming a Barbarian

One of Donovan’s main assumptions is that if something doesn’t benefit him, it’s no good. It’s important to have your tribe, so they can reciprocate when the rest of the world won’t. It’s a cop out and denies personal responsibility. That being said, Donovan’s understanding of history is tenuous at best and clearly has no idea what “empire” is (even though he spends copious amounts of time explaining about why it’s bad).

Further, the author fails to understand culture, which he claims needs isolation but—contrary to his views—no man is an island and all cultures have relied on interaction and exchange with other cultures. He also assumes that the pre-modern world was a constant time of some sort of Nietzschean master morality. The truth is that the role of men was not one of constant dominance, by any means. Donovan’s views of “struggle” are based more in high fantasy and observations of wolves than anything remotely human.

Lastly, USE OTHER SOURCES AND CITE THEM. If Donovan did this, perhaps his book wouldn’t be an absolute pile of bullshit. This sort of material is better suited for an obsessive blog than anything in print.