Our cultural infatuation with numbers.
11/19/2001
Is our obsession with numbers driving us crazy? In The Sum of our Discontent: Why Numbers Make Us Irrational, economist David Boyle takes a serious look at our cultural infatuation with numbers. Tracing the roots of our obsession to 18th century Utilitarianism, Boyle examines our suffocating fascination with numbers. Using the ballot-counting debacle of the 2000 U.S. presidential election as an example, Boyle shows how truly subjective—and occasionally unhelpful—numbers can be. This is a provocative attempt to make us think more clearly about the complexities of human existence that transcend the mere quantitative.