Philosophy Discussion Forums

Zero.

Books, especially from disciplines like philosophy, sociology, globalistics etc. are just load of ****. Now, when everybody writes books, blogs etc. the income of sh|t is even greater. What's most irritating most of this "knowledge" is simple overwrite, just words used are different. Human gathers experience from offline interactions, not from books. Books are useful for techy knowledge - building bridges, building aircraft engines.

Me, I read only leisure books, like Swedish crime novels.

If books are a load of sh*t, why bother with Swedish crime novels? EMTe, you're obviously literate and intelligent. You are obviously well-read. I don't understand why you would express such disdain for books.

I think it's pretty obvious.

I'm too literate and intelligent. That's why I want to burn the books, before I burn the whole Earth.

It's too late, anyway. Whenever you express yourself it's already too late...

EMTe wrote:I'm too literate and intelligent.

Is that even possible?

That's why I want to burn the books, before I burn the whole Earth.

It's too late, anyway. Whenever you express yourself it's already too late...

There are just some things you learn to appreciate with age. As a child, I despised reading any book and during "reading time" in class I would hold an opened book up to conceal my face so that my teacher or fellow students wouldn't know I was trying to nap in the rare case one of them would take their eyes of their book and happen to turn my direction. I found the value of reading books as adult because I realized that books convey profound ideas and experiences that take a season of time to discover, and I have the benefit of absorbing those ideas and experiences in one sitting.

It's hard to say, probably it depends more in when did I read them.
I don't remember all the titles, and I don't know if titles are the same in the English version of those books.

This question is too large to be answered coherently in a brief note, so I'll just mention three ways that books have influenced me:

1. Because I needed to read accurately, books taught me to pay attention and be careful in my observations. When you read a book, you have to be sure that what you see is what is actually there. (I learned this long before the deconstructionists came along to assure me that there really wasn't anything there in the first place.) I think accuracy of observation is important in all phases of a person's life, but books offer you a good chance to teach yourself to be careful and conscientious in making your observations.

2. Books showed me how impatient I am. I've come across so many books that I knew others found interesting, yet I lacked the resources to read and appreciate them as I should have done. It's helpful, I think, to be reminded from time to time of one's limitations in that regard. I had the ambition to be, as Henry James said, the man on whom nothing was lost, and books showed me how distant a goal that really was, at least for me.

3. Finally, I learned how important timing can be. A book that matters a great deal to you at one point in your life might seem almost devoid of meaning when you either think back on it or reencounter it later on in your life, and you are reminded how fleeting your convictions sometimes are. You can thus re-learn the lesson mentioned in Herodotus, that the one statement true for all occasions is "This too shall pass away."

To end on a positive note, though, I will mention one book, Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground. That was a book I read at absolutely the right time, so that I derived enjoyment and a great deal of instruction from reading it. The "sick man, the spiteful man" in that book spoke to me as few other characters ever have. If I'd have read that book later on in my life, it probably would not have affected me as it did, but I've never forgotten how much pleasure and insight it gave me when I first read it.

EMTe wrote:I'm too literate and intelligent.

Don't underestimate yourself.

You should never underestimate your own intelligence. It may turn out to be an impossible task.



-- Updated 2017 August 22nd, 3:39 pm to add the following --

Venividivici wrote:There are just some things you learn to appreciate with age. As a child, I despised reading any book and during "reading time" in class I would hold an opened book up to conceal my face so that my teacher or fellow students wouldn't know I was trying to nap in the rare case one of them would take their eyes of their book and happen to turn my direction. I found the value of reading books as adult because I realized that books convey profound ideas and experiences that take a season of time to discover, and I have the benefit of absorbing those ideas and experiences in one sitting.

Studies show that reading fiction (good fiction) helps people learn what motivates others, how, why,and what others think, and helps people learn how to navigate in a complex social map spotted with people of different personalities and dispositions.

This what i wrote above I heard, not read. So I can't direct you to the source, the actual studies.

Interestingly, on a more personal level: I always liked fiction. Before age 15, when I no longer was able to get through a book, any book -- a sudden-onset ADD hit me. But I related to poetry like the way you related all literature. I could not stomach poetry, and now I'm a suczker for it. This is the poem that inspired me to do a face-about:

TABLE


A man filled with the gladness of living
Put his keys on the table,
Put flowers in a copper bowl there.
He put his eggs and milk on the table.
He put there the light that came in through the window,
Sound of a bicycle, sound of a spinning wheel.
The softness of bread and weather he put there.
On the table the man put
Things that happened in his mind.
What he wanted to do in life,
He put that there.
Those he loved, those he didn't love,
The man put them on the table too.
Three times three make nine:
The man put nine on the table.
He was next to the window next to the sky;
He reached out and placed on the table endlessness.
So many days he had wanted to drink a beer!
He put on the table the pouring of that beer.
He placed there his sleep and his wakefulness;
His hunger and his fullness he placed there.

Now that's what I call a table!
It didn't complain at all about the load.
It wobbled once or twice, then stood firm.
The man kept piling things on.

--Richard Tillinghast

I read it in the Atlantic Monthly, and I reproduced it here without the permission of either the poet or the publication.

I very much doubt that either one would take offence at this. All publicity is good publicity, and for the poet, well, a poet wants to be heard and read before everything else, and the more eyeballs read his poetry the more satisfied he gets.

After reading the book "The Way of the Peaceful Warrior" by Dan Millman, I was finally able to completely leave religion.