I once had a brilliant friend that, in his telling, lost a well-paying job because he liked to read books in classical Greek during his breaks. So, reading can be dangerous!
Let me back up a bit. My friend was so brilliant that he was permanently expelled from the public school system in Canada in the 8th grade for, essentially, insubordination. He became so bored with the repetition of information, such as how chlorophyll works in plants, that he stood up in class and demanded that they study something new. This was apparently the last straw as he was banned from the system. You might think it is not possible to be expelled from a public school system, but I knew him for several decades and I'm quite certain the story is as I have related. He filled in a few years by working in a men's store and attending a monastery as a novitiate. When I met him he had returned to Canada and, a few years later, following my example, he applied, as an adult, to enter university.
I applied as an adult as well as I had been out of school for two years and had graduated high school with a miserable 53% average! Somehow they accepted both myself and, a year later, my friend. I was in music, of course, but he entered Classical Studies as a double honors major in Greek and Latin. He had already taught himself Italian and Hebrew, so I guess he had shown promise. After graduating he attended a different university as a master's candidate in philosophy. He later received a PhD in philosophy and followed that with an MBA. Seriously overeducated!
His first job was as a corporate loans officer with a large Canadian bank and this was the job he lost. Because he liked to read, in Greek, during his lunch break, this made his boss insecure so he got rid of him. He then got a new job as a hospital administrator.
I was reminded of this recently when I was in my office and during some quiet moments, reading a book by Thomas Sowell:
Someone walked into my office and, with no preamble, asked "is that fiction or non-fiction?" I answered "non-fiction" but I had the impression she would have been much happier if I had answered "fiction." I think she might have been quite upset if she had known the contents! But I whisked it out of sight and answered her business-related questions.
This wasn't the first time I have upset people who noticed what I was reading. When I was young, around twelve years old, my father was horrified to see me reading a comic book or science fiction. Back in those days science fiction was not well-regarded unlike nowadays. Most people these days are accepting as there is so much weirdness floating around that reading stuff like analytic philosophy can almost pass as normal.
I was sitting in a coffee shop one day, sharing a table with a stranger and reading on my newly-acquired Kindle. I had just discovered that a Kindle is actually a kind of bookstore and had downloaded a book I used to own but, like many others, one that had been lost in a move. The book was the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein. When I finished my coffee I closed the Kindle and got up to leave. My table partner, an older gentleman, said, "finished your work?" thinking that the Kindle was a tablet. I said, no, I was just reading something. So he asked, "What are you reading?" Oh god! I froze. Now, I should have said the latest Tom Clancy or something but instead I just blurted out the name of the book: uh, the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein... He gave me a look and said, "oh yeah, I saw the movie." Good one! So, with some people, yes, you can get away with reading "dangerous books." But with many, I don't think you can. I suspect there are some authors who would instantly inspire hatred and loathing if people suspect you are reading them. If you want to know why, you should consult the book mentioned above by Thomas Sowell, one of those dangerous authors.
15 comments:
Someone (Joseph Epstein?) once said that one of the saddest things about growing older is that one runs out of people to admire. For me, Thomas Sowell is one such person.
If you mean "living" people to admire, then I wholeheartedly agree! Thomas Sowell, born in 1930, won't be with us forever. But there are still a healthy number of other people to admire, I think. And we can still read their books.
On a few occasions I've been bothered, not entirely pleasantly, for reading on the train. I probably don't help myself by sometimes reading rather old editions that, although they look a bit antique and strange, can be picked up for pennies in charity shops. The curious thing is, I'm sure I'm at greater risk of harassment for reading a book than someone who is doing anything actually obnoxious like watching their instagram feeds at full volume, using speakerphone, playing music through bluetooth speakers, resting their feet on the seats, and so on. Those things do not seem to be as offensive to many people's sensibilities. Simon Ley's Empire of Ugliness and all that...
Yes, of course, living people--and Sowell, at 93, seems an obvious example. Are there other “public intellectuals” (for lack of a better term) whom you admire?
C'mon guys, we're lucky to HAVE these books, we're not victims or easy prey, just a little careful about what we put into our minds. Happy reading to all here! PS: Just a few days ago I sent a Christmas card to a former co-worker's 9 or 10 year old son, with a gift of a book on astronomy for young readers. In the card I enclosed a 3-page handwritten letter in CURSIVE extolling the many benefits of reading over the course of his life, telling him childhood is short and he'll spend most of his life as an adult, etc. The book should help him better understand the subscription to Astronomy magazine that I gifted him last month. I give this kid a book every few months. Last spring I gave him (and his Dad) a short tour of a few spots on the Yale campus, including the Sterling and Beinecke libraries. His Dad immigrated here from Jamaica and complained to me his son isn't trying at school so I've been trying to inspire him to become a reader. The popular culture of social media is harmful to attention spans, and book-reading is a bit like musicianship in that it requires longer attention spans and a self-motivated life of study. But enough reading and writing for the moment, now I will pick up my bow...
I neglected to mention that there is another book that I have been reading recently that I belatedly realized could be considered dangerous--and that is the Old Testament. I recently finished the first three books, Genesis, Exodus and Leviticus and happened to mention that to someone and found myself explaining that these books echo down through the last two thousand years of writing and thought. But in many circles they are not considered quite the thing.
Of course the really dangerous books, by people like Plato, Aristotle and David Hume, are not even recognized as such.
Jim, one great public intellectual that we just lost was Richard Taruskin. One writer that I do enjoy for his civilized observations is Theodore Dalrymple. In Canada there is Conrad Black. But none are quite of the stature of Thomas Sowell.
Will, your friend's son is so lucky to have your encouragement.
Speaking of reading on the train, Steven, last summer I was on the train from Dresden to a small town not far from the Polish border. There was a young woman in the next seat reading a book. When I glanced over out of curiosity, I noticed it was in Cyrillic! And a couple of years before, taking the train from Salzburg to Innsbruck, the woman across from me was reading something by Italo Calvino. Ah, Europe!
Bryan, I’ve read a lot of Dalrymple (The New Criterion, City Journal, NR) and some Conrad Black, whose admiration for FDR puts me in mind of Amity Shlaes’s “The Forgotten Man”, a book that should be required reading for, well, everyone—especially ahistorical central planners.
Could you please recommend a Richard Taruskin book (or essay) for this layman who is woefully, profoundly, ignorant of music-theory yet feels that without classical music he would surely perish? Okay, the last part of that sentence isn’t true; it only seems that way after listening to, I dunno, a Beethoven string quartet, say.
Will, I agree with Bryan: your friend’s son is indeed fortunate to have your encouragement. Would that every kid had such guidance.
I have yet to tackle Taruskin's monumental Oxford project, but have read 'On Russian Music', which is a good way to be introduced to his literary style. Aside from his supreme skill as a writer, he particularly seems to enjoy debunking myths and engaging in academic dogfights. I found these essays to be extremely erudite and entertaining.
Jim, there are several collections of Taruskin's essays and while some of them are rather technical, many were written for the general public. The first collection was "Text and Act" and it is as good a place to look as any. It mostly deals with issues relating to performance.
Marc, have a look at some of his other collections. "The Danger of Music" and "Cursed Questions" are both rather good.
The first name that comes to mind when I think of public intellectuals is Jordan Peterson, whose existence I came to know via this very blog. Bryan has posted extensively on Mr Peterson, whom I think is sincere and tries to tackle the "hard truths" without agenda or bias. His synthesis of many different strands of psychology and philosophy is a refreshing antidote to the mostly irrelevant, "monetising" self-help industry.
I’m afraid I’ll have to disagree there, Marc. Peterson is in fact one of the examples of brand-builders and monetizers that I was thinking of. Longtime followers of his have often expressed disappointment at the dwindling quality of his activity as his fame has skyrocketed. He has a core audience of financial supporters that he might seemingly give some tough love to, but cannot risk truly offending. He refers to books that he apparently no longer has free time to read, etc.
I have indeed posted extensively on Jordan Peterson on this blog. I have read his book "12 Rules for Life" and enjoyed many of his earlier video clips originating from before his widespread fame. And one of the reasons I have been reading the first books of the Old Testament is due to his series of talks on Genesis and Exodus. BUT! Yes, there is a looming but. While I remain deeply impressed with his intellectual capacities as exhibited in his 45 minute meditation on one paragraph from Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil, I do see that the enormous pressures of fame have resulted in the creation of an intellectual "brand" as Anonymous claims. I find I can't make the simple recommendation to watch all his videos as I once would have.
my impression is that Peterson may not have STARTED as a brand-shaper but he seems to have become one by now.
I think I'd lean more toward Jacob L Wright's new book Why The Bible Began for new/alternative takes on the formation of biblical literature. His dense but informative book on war memorial and Davidic narrative was intriguing. Yonatan Adler's new book on how and why Judaism emerged in the Hasmonean period has been interesting reading, too. While I read and study as a Christian I would suggest for Leviticus you consider Jacob Milgrom's commentary on Leviticus.
I have never gotten trouble for reading books or looked at askance for reading books but ... this might be the part where my living in Seattle has had fringe benefits. It's a pretty bookish city with several universities.
Thanks, Wenatchee for those suggestions. The Adler sounds particularly interesting.
Reading books, even esoteric ones, in public is ubiquitous in Montreal as well, with its five universities. In Mexico, however, reading a book in public, any book, is almost unheard of!
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