Douglas Garland

The Tall Poppy Syndrom, by Douglas Garland, M.D., is a decent book explaining not only what the term Tall Poppy Syndrome (TPS) means but the general psychology behind why people naturally perform the actions that is TPS.
"Leveling the playing field' is how I saw this syndrome, people automatically excluding or "bringing down" those around them who seem to be of a higher caliber, for example. Envy being the optimal explanation.
I think the examples given are enlightening, even going back in time to show how this is more of a human trait than a learned trait.
I did enjoy reading this book and for someone just interested in beginning to understand why some tend to "bring down" others, this is a nice spot to begin.… (més)

This is a book which purports to be the definitive guide to the "Tall Poppy Syndrome" an-age old metaphor for the destructive consequences of envy and hubris. What is actually in this book are a semi-random assortments of "case studies" which essentially amount to poorly constructed summaries of encyclopedia entries of various figures in history. Interspersed throughout are the author's asinine parenthetical terms ("TP", "Cutter", "Egregious", etc) which are supposed to be making his case for why each person is either a victim of Tall Poppy Syndrome or a nefarious "Cutter" of someone much more successful than themselves.

First of all, it's really boring to read. The author is a terrible writer and much of his commentary is redundant, awkwardly worded, or just generally unnecessary. He also does a really bad job of defining the titular syndrome and doesn't seem to really understand it. He essentially just classifies anyone who's had a negative event in their lives as a victim of being "Tall Poppied". This just leads to a really scattershot approach, a shallow investigation of the phenomenon, and some truly tedious reading.

Secondly, this guy is a massive racist/sexist/general asshole. The infractions were too numerous to mention, but lets just say that he several times commented upon the unfortunate way men tend to be targeted by women with rape allegations. He compared the MeToo Movement to the Red Scare. He also described the slavery and physical abuse of Harriet Tubman as ... "bullying". I just. There are no words. He's trash.

Along those same lines, this dude has a boner for America. There is a section in his book where he basically compares every other country to America and just talks about how terrible these other countries are. He literally sums up an entire country's culture in a single paragraph and then says something like, "The Danes are generally hopeless because they are missing out on American Exceptionalism". I'm not exaggerating. He describes Denmark, the country that ranks number one in Happiness, as hopeless.

At this point, it will surprise you not at all to discover that the book closes with reminder that Donald Trump is actually a really great guy who's been through a lot and has been victimized not only by TPS, but also an entire virus. That's right, he literally says, that COVID-19 was picking on Donald Trump.

One final complaint about this embarrassingly boring and offensive book: the author's recounting of its genesis. Apparently, he had an extremely minor career setback in which the powers that be took away his nice office and gave it to someone else. I guess his position had declined significantly in importance and responsibility over the years and he was only working part time so they gave his office to someone who is doing more. Honestly, it sounded pretty reasonable to me. But man, he's really mad about it, even though he says at the end that he's totally over it and anyway he went out and got a much better job right away. But one of his friends told him that he had been "tall poppied". Apparently, this guy had never heard of this pretty common metaphor before. Naturally, he assumed if he hasn't heard of it, that it is essentially unknown in America. So, after he retired, he decided to research the concept and write a whole book about it because he literally believes that if he hasn't heard of it, no one has. Big cringe.

TL;DR - This book is garbage. Throw it in a fire.… (més)