Review: We've Got Issues by Phil McGraw

Russell

Jul 29, 2024

We’ve Got Issues: How you can stand Strong For America’s Soul And Sanity

Author: Phillip C McGraw (Dr. Phil)

Published by: Threshold Editions

Genre(s): Culture, Self Help

Complexity: 1.5/5

Pages: 384 (including the citations)

Buy at: Amazon

If you like this book I think you will probably like: The War on the West

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About the Author

Phil McGraw is best known for his day time T.V Show Dr. Phil. He holds a doctorate in Psychology and has written several books including Life Strategies, Relationship Rescue, self matters, family first, as well as Op-eds and Columns. He launched into the TV scene in part because of his close proximity to another Day Time TV star Oprah Winfrey.

As to my personal thoughts on Dr. Phil, his show has been wildly successful, much of his marketing goes towards stay at home moms and working class people. His show has seen its fair share of interesting highlights and controversy over the years as well as spawning some internet meme culture. Of note is the famous “catch me outside” meme. An episode of note was when Dr. Phil invited one of the makers of the series called “bum fights” on to the show. When he came into the studio he was dressed almost exactly like Dr. Phil and when Phil called him out about his abuse of the homeless he claimed that Dr. Phil engages in similar behavior with his show.

Another episode of note is when Dr. Phil brought on James Lindsay to the show to argue against Critical Race Theory but he wasn’t really on the panel. James had a few minutes to try to cram as much as he could into the conversation. Phil’s attitude towards Lindsay seemed off putting yet this book I am reviewing covers some of the topics that Lindsay himself has brought up.

Dr. Phil is now working on making his own Network called Merit Street Media with some other notable day time show hosts.

About the Book

We’ve Got Issues is a self help book that discusses modern socio-political issues and offers sets of advice based off of these issues. The book itself lays out 10 principles that you should keep in mind while you read it as the author refers back to them frequently. These principles are:

Be Who You Are on Purpose
Focus on Solving Problems Rather Than Winning Arguments
Don’t Reward bad Behavior or Support Conduct you do Not Value
Measure All Actions Based on Results, and All Thoughts Based on Rationality
Consciously Choose Which Voices in Your Life Deserve the Most Attention
Do Not Stay Silent so Others Can Remain Comfortable
Actively Live and Support a Meritocracy
Identify and Build Your Consequential Knowledge
Work Hard to Understand the Way Others See Things
Treat Yourself With Dignity and Respect

The book opens with a forward from Phil talking reflecting on his show and how the show has enabled him to see trends in America and thus concluding that this is not a natural evolution of society but designed to undermine society and the family unit in particular. Dr. Phil would know, he’s been interviewing and working with dysfunctional Americans for the majority of his career. He opens with a few heavy hitters that will strike chords with many people, especially those who have been speaking out and noticing the trend of activists trying to recruit children. Dr. Phil is more charitable then I would be. I would say that they are attempting to train the Red Guard of tomorrow, realizing that targeting College students and even high school students isn’t as effective as positioning behavioral modification in the school system at the youngest age possible.

I believe these activists are preying on our children at a time when they are at their most vulnerable, while their brains are still developing. No wonder our children are suffering record-high levels of depression, anxiety and loneliness. (Pg. X)

His correctly points out the victim hierarchy and counters it with some of his core beliefs. Overall the introduction of the book works as a good gut punch to the senses and sets up the tone and tenor that will be following for the rest of the book. His introduction continues into this and brings up several big factors that will be discussed later on: Logic, natural law, facts existing, silence is a choice, virtue signaling and more… One thing that the introduction does well is set up the idea that you can either participate in a lie or you don’t and that both have consequences.

Chapter one focuses on the concept of “disruption.” Phil gives some solid examples and a breakdown of how he sees the disruptors identifying issues to target. He also gives a basic definition of Post-Modernism that would be a good introduction for a lay person to the subject.

Nothing is immune from these history-ignoring and make-it-up-as-you-go-along “woke mobs.” (Pg. 30)

He gives some advice on how to push back against it. One weakness is that he seems to stop short of declaring the issues to me Marxist in origin. Pg.36 2nd paragraph he doesn’t go all the way as I believed he should have. He goes into quite some detail about cancellation and cancel culture,

Phil moves on to talk about his show and how when he started the Dr. Phil show many people came to him with their personal issues however in recent years there has been an increase in people’s anxiety and personal issues also stemming from the collective experiences of society. Chapter Two focuses heavily on words, trigger warnings and language policing. Chapter three builds directly off of chapter two in bringing up the topic of inclusive language and the doublespeak of that phrase. There is a good topic session that shows how ramped up the insanity is with the use of the term “justice involved person” instead of just felon or convict.

Chapter four is short and covers the topic of doublespeak and double think. It’s a linking chapter that gets built up on in Chapter five which covers re-written content. Books, shows, films and music that has been re-imagined for the modern sensitive audience. Phil makes the argument that book altering itself may be far more dangerous then outright banning the books.

Apparently, nobody is allowed to be fat. That seems to be a pretty strange line to draw at a time when nearly 20 percent of children in America are categorized as obese (Pg. 91)

The book now splits into part two where Phil re-directs from what others are doing to us, to what we are doing to ourselves. He talks about how people join internet pile on actions and the change in how people perceive offensiveness with the dawn of social media. Chapter six focuses on encouraging people to de-program themselves from the groups they have sided with on both sides of the political spectrum. Reminiscent of the Madness of Crowds. The focus of the chapter is encouraging people to wrestle themselves away from the group-think of their preferred sides of things to regain a sense of individuality so that they can think for themselves. Basically don’t join a cult! There is purposeful use of religious iconography to describe how people become indoctrinated into the most extremes of any group. It encourages truth over group conformity. Realizing that you will probably be ridiculed for not conforming to the exact beliefs of the group. I personally see it all the time on X, people will agree with 99.9% of what their group says but the 0.1% of the time they disagree the group turns on them like a pack of rabid wolves feasting on them for their apostacy. It’s vicious and disorientating.

Chapter seven is a warning about doing our enemies work for us by us and is basically about brainwashing people with Phil making reference to Yuri Bezmenov. It’s about the corruption of our sense making apparatuses and leads directly into Chapter eight which is about the power of the modern algorithm on social media. The chapter talks about the material being fed to us on sites like Tiktok and how we are all being manipulated by algorithms to keep us watching which drives up ad revenue for them.

The average American checks their smartphone 352 times a day. (Pg. 119)

Chapter nine crosses from what they do to keep you watching to what they do to keep content from reaching too many people and the effect that has on free speech. Phil even describes the digital town squares as false and we are heading towards a fear based society. He goes a step further and says that in the future you will never even know the dissenting idea existed because it will be algorithmically censored.

Chapter ten focuses on logical fallacies with an emphasis on the fallacy of holding people to account for content and behaviors many years ago that are now unacceptable by todays standards. This leads somewhat into chapter eleven which focuses on the power of being able to and willing to change your mind on topics. If you’re a Jordan Peterson fan this chapter will be familiar as the five main personality traits are discussed in detail. There is also a QC code and the reader is encouraged to take the HEXACO-PI-R test to get a rough idea of their personality disposition.

Chapter twelve moves into the concept of victimhood. Phil opens by talking about some points he could use as victimhood factors, moves into why he has rejected them and why you should reject your potential factors as well. He has a series of questions to rate yourself on then moves in four traits of why victimhood doesn’t work as well as why it isn’t good for you and society at large to have a victimhood mentality approach. The chapter moves into the concept of Critical Race Theory and provides a very basic overview of it and the effects it has. This chapter made me go back and re-watch the segment that Phil did in which he had James Lindsay on the show to discuss CRT and I wonder now if Phil took more points from James then it looked like on the show. The topic moves into reparation payments then moves into victim culture leading to revenge. This is probably the heaviest chapter of the book for the lay person reading and delves deepest into the philosophical underpinnings of our current culture. The best section of this chapter in my opinion is the section on being a witness and the power that comes with (in my own words here) being a good noticer. Chapter 13 finishes off this part of the book with a look into some of the psychology of the past few chapters and focuses on the groups we are part of and how they influence us. It’s a warning about the dangers of radical collectivism and it leads right into what I believe is the most Conservative leaning part of the book.

You have the right not to know the answer to questions. Saying “I do not know” is not a sign of weakness. Taking time to inform yourself is a sign of strength and agency. (Pg. 162)

Part three of the book is aptly labelled “Family, Faith and Community” and is the most Conservative part of the book in my opinion. Some of what is said is reminiscent of Kirk’s The Conservative Mind perhaps lesser so as Phil still has faith in some aspects of the Mass State towards education. The lead in introduction is heavily focused on encouraging people to keep their family unit front stage. It also has an interesting correction that Phil makes from his first book.

But reading now what I wrote back in Family First, I want to offer an addendum, an update. When I was writing that, I was concerned that the dysfunction of unsocialized children can contaminate the family. Today I would argue that the decline of the family can contaminate society. (Pg. 180)

Chapter fourteen gets into divorce and Phil breaks down the details about the damages that divorce does to families. He rightly correlates that cohabitation of a partner in a single parent household can be worse for children due to the rates of abuse that occur. The entire chapter might be described as enhancing the protective factors of marriage and that marriage is more then a civil union meant for sexual gratification. Phil advocates that men need to start being men and leave perpetual adolescence behind. Chapter fifteen is about modeling good behavior for your children and rejecting the false relationships offered by social media. It is a chapter about being authentic for the sake of your family but really being authentic in taking action and not just complaining about it. Your children will see you complain and do nothing or complain and take action…the difference will effect how they will handle similar situations in their own lives. Chapter sixteen focuses on faith and it was a chapter I didn’t expect to see in this book until I read more about Phil’s own Baptist upbringing in it. You’ll have to decide yourself if Phil makes a convincing argument for faith based on your own religious convictions but I believe he did a good job of tying morality and lack of faith to our current cultural predicament we are in. The chapter does well to tie some of our cultural issues back to the rejection of God and the modern belief that many believe they can simply will a set of morals and rules into being without owing anything to the idea of the Devine and how that is failing us.

Chapter seventeen is one that will certainly interest the gender critical people. The theme is that science is under attack and directly takes on the entire transgender issue. Now this book was produced before the WPATH files and Cass Review were released and with these reports it doesn’t age the greatest but I believe Phil knew this chapter would probably be the most tumultuous so he played it safe. Should these reports had been released before Phil wrote the book I think he would have had far more ammunition to go after this issue and may have been less charitable.

Having Reviewed the literature concerning the medical transition of prepubescent children, I am nothing short of shocked that the leadership of these professional organizations has endorsed these procedures. They must either be advancing their own personal agendas or have caved to the Tyranny of the Fringe. Either way, I don’t think history will be kind to them (Pg. 212)

Phil is too charitable in my opinion in trying to appear as nuanced as possible. He is writing to his audience so he doesn’t get into the philosophical underpinnings of the movement. He sticks to why the medical community is advancing with it the way that they have. In my opinion this chapter is well done but maybe the weakest in pushing back overall. The radical gender ideologues don’t care about facts, they only demand you submit, that you deny reality.

The final part of the novel is Part Four, the ten working principles for a healthy society. I am not going to cover this section in depth. It is a more detailed view of the ten principles I mentioned above. The entire book has covered these principles in varying degrees and this chapter wraps them up with some additional personal insight and fleshing out.

The conclusion was written as a call to action. Phil describes an exercise for a visual representation of ones life to help ground someone into seeing what has passed and how much one may see yet to come to motivate people to take action. It is a good way to get people motivated to start actively applying the principles he encourages in the book and a smart way to finish the book off.

Media Associated with the Book

Dr. Phil fires back at the crones from the View with a center left approach to the results of COVID on children. It was an interesting angle that prevented a direct counter attack but it was in my opinion a safer play then what he could have gone with.

While it might play well with his audience, I wasn’t particularly impressed by this ad. There’s plenty of people who have been pushing back against these issues…they just generally don’t have the huge platform that Phil has to do it from.

Watching this interview highlights that Dr. Phil is wading into interesting territory that are not the usual types of interactions that he is used to having as a guest. I hope after this he was able to re-watch it and see some of the areas that he will need to work on if he is going to go toe to toe with people who don’t agree with his views.

My Analysis of the Book

This is a book that provides practical advice & examples on relevant cultural issues. It is a book that a lay person in the cultural war around us can pick up and read through and gain a centered perspective on the extreme cultural issues. It’s tailored to Phil’s audience, middle of the road Americans and suburbia living people. It’s meant for the person who is wondering why terms like “LatinX” suddenly entered the cultural lexicon. It provides some perspective on modernity issues and the rise of cancel culture. It doesn't try to get too deep into the philosophical underpinnings of the current cultural climate which tends to turn lay people away. For me the political tone is classic Liberalism rubbing up on Conservatism around the end of Chapter thirteen. I would recommend it for the modern family unit that is suddenly wondering why everything that was normal for the past twenty years or so is rapidly changing with some advice on how to hold on to that structure without getting swept away by the cultural tempest battering the shores of the family unit.

A central theme of the book that resonated with me is that it denounces cancel culture and advises people that now is the time to use your voice. To not be scared but instead to say what you believe with your shoulders back and head held high. In our current culture that is important and I agree with Phil that we are living in a “tyranny of the fringe” and we can only get out of it by refusing to play their game.

The book is packed with real examples that everyday people will resonate with and go “yeah, what is up with that?!” These examples are timely and at times I found myself laughing at the absolute absurdity of what we’ve allowed to transgress. I found the polling questions with the answers at the end of the chapters to reveal that many people are self censoring and engaging daily in cognitive patterns that they don’t agree with. Hopefully this book will help some people find their voice.

This is not a right wing book. There are those who are claiming that this confirm Phil as a right winger and for me it only showcases just how far the Overton Window has shifted. Phil based on what I read in this book appears to be more of a centrist with a some subjects bouncing past the center line to the right. However, because of how far the window has shifted it only gives him the appearance of being a right winger but that accusation is enough for those who think these issues are just reactionary.

Final Thoughts

We’ve Got Issues is an easy read that appeals to the type of audience that Dr. Phil cultivated with his day time TV Show. It provides a good overall lay person view of our current cultural climate. The book dispenses solid wisdom for strengthening protective factors around the self and the family unit. It provides well rounded examples and solid citations. I would recommend it for the person that doesn’t need or want a deep dive into the cultural war and instead wants some reinforcement of time tested protective methods to keep the family unit strong and ward off the cultural rot that has infected our society.

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