The Dangers of Reading

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.