EdenicFaithful
Dark Wizard of Ravenclaw
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User ID: 78
EdenicFaithful
Dark Wizard of Ravenclaw
9d ago
Zimmern, although it looks like the standard one is Kaufmann.
EdenicFaithful
Dark Wizard of Ravenclaw
9d ago
So, what are you reading?
I’m still on Future Shock, 12 Commandments and Closing of the American Mind. Picking up Al-Ghazali’s The Book of Knowledge, which so far is a lot of quotes, and Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil, which is more interesting and lucid than I expected.
EdenicFaithful
Dark Wizard of Ravenclaw
16d ago
So, what are you reading?
Still on Future Shock, 12 Commandments and Closing of the American Mind.
EdenicFaithful
Dark Wizard of Ravenclaw
23d ago
So, what are you reading?
Still on Future Shock and 12 Commandments. Picking up Bloom’s Closing of the American Mind.
EdenicFaithful
Dark Wizard of Ravenclaw
30d ago
So, what are you reading?
Still on Future Shock, 12 Commandments, Crystallizing Public Opinion and Galactic Patrol.
EdenicFaithful
Dark Wizard of Ravenclaw
1mo ago
So, what are you reading?
Still on Future Shock, Galactic Patrol, Crystallizing Public Opinion and 12 Commandments.
EdenicFaithful
Dark Wizard of Ravenclaw
1mo ago
So, what are you reading?
Still on Future Shock, Galactic Patrol and Crystallizing Public Opinion. Taking another stab at Freinacht’s 12 Commandments.
EdenicFaithful
Dark Wizard of Ravenclaw
1mo ago
Star Trek: Lower Decks is actually quite good. There’s some wokeness, but for the most part it’s a solid work with good characters, hilarity and normal Trek things. It is also definitely not for children.
EdenicFaithful
Dark Wizard of Ravenclaw
1mo ago
Ultimately it’s about proximity to Pandora’s box.
Some people will gravitate towards it on the assumption that hope, too, lives within it–hope for a better understanding than what is available.
It’s natural that the chaotic nature of that source of knowledge will splinter into many different confusions, and to notice only the strangeness is to risk missing the point.
EdenicFaithful
Dark Wizard of Ravenclaw
1mo ago
I’ve been reading it at a snail’s pace, so I can’t say too much at the moment, but honestly, Future Shock is already one of the most interesting books I’ve read. I’m not very impressed with many takes on progress, but by focusing specifically on change and its psychological counterparts (as opposed to end results), it brings out a lot of insights which seem worth studying. There’s a vision here, something that’s just a little cerebral without being untethered. I’ll try to do a proper review for the next thread.
As for Bernays, I wasn’t very impressed with him the first time I read him, but he’s one of those writers who stick in your head for some reason. The books which click years later are the best, and his fit that category for me.
EdenicFaithful
Dark Wizard of Ravenclaw
1mo ago
So, what are you reading?
I’m still on Future Shock, Galactic Patrol and Crystallizing Public Opinion.
EdenicFaithful
Dark Wizard of Ravenclaw
1mo ago
So, what are you reading?
Still on Future Shock and Galactic Patrol. Rereading Bernays’ Crystallizing Public Opinion. Bernays has been on my mind often while watching the US election unfold. I think he would have disapproved of the Harris campaign's choices.
EdenicFaithful
Dark Wizard of Ravenclaw
2mo ago
So, what are you reading?
Still on Future Shock and Committing Journalism. Starting Galactic Patrol, in the Lensman series.
EdenicFaithful
Dark Wizard of Ravenclaw
2mo ago
So, what are you reading?
Still on Future Shock, Committing Journalism and Scaramouche. Sabatini never fails. Also going through Mises’ The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality, which hits like a blunt instrument but offers an interesting model for understanding people.
EdenicFaithful
Dark Wizard of Ravenclaw
2mo ago
So, what are you reading?
Still on Future Shock, The Cheese and the Worms and Scaramouche. Also going through Committing Journalism: The Prison Writings of Red Hog.
EdenicFaithful
Dark Wizard of Ravenclaw
2mo ago
So, what are you reading?
Still on Future Shock, The Cheese and the Worms and Scaramouche.
EdenicFaithful
Dark Wizard of Ravenclaw
3mo ago
So, what are you reading?
I’m still on Future Shock and The Cheese and the Worms. Also going through Sabatini’s Scaramouche, which seems considerably more interesting than the film.
EdenicFaithful
Dark Wizard of Ravenclaw
3mo ago
So, what are you reading?
I’m still on The Conquest of Bread and Future Shock.
Picking up Ginzburg’s The Cheese and the Worms, a book about the inner universe of a 16th century miller who was executed by the Inquisition. The title is a reference to his belief that the world was created from a chaos “just as cheese is made out of milk” and “worms appeared in it, and these were the angels.” The man himself sounds like a decent man, not particularly crazy, concerned with the money-making aspects of the Church and the apparent absurdity of its teachings, preferring a simplified, natural religion of doing good deeds.
EdenicFaithful
Dark Wizard of Ravenclaw
3mo ago
So, what are you reading?
Still on The Conquest of Bread and Future Shock. Also finished Alfred Russel Wallace: A Rediscovered Life, which posits that Wallace was a precursor of intelligent design. The biography was good, though the arguments at the end were sometimes confusing.
EdenicFaithful
Dark Wizard of Ravenclaw
3mo ago
So, what are you reading?
Still on The Conquest of Bread. Picking up Toffler’s Future Shock.
EdenicFaithful
Dark Wizard of Ravenclaw
4mo ago
So, what are you reading?
I'm still on This Star of England and The Conquest of Bread.
EdenicFaithful
Dark Wizard of Ravenclaw
4mo ago
So, what are you reading?
Still on This Star of England.
Kropotkin’s The Conquest of Bread starts off as a surprisingly typical communist screed, but it starts distinguishing itself after it denies the labour theory of value, saying that new forms of production must yield new forms of consumption. An interesting discussion of liberty soon follows. He has a keen eye to underappreciated people, which ameliorates his otherwise combative style.
EdenicFaithful
Dark Wizard of Ravenclaw
4mo ago
So, what are you reading?
I’m still on This Star of England, and picking up Kropotkin’s The Conquest of Bread.
EdenicFaithful
Dark Wizard of Ravenclaw
4mo ago
So, what are you reading?
Still on The Mysterious William Shakespeare and This Star of England. I wonder if the distinction between orthodox and unorthodox is really between “objective” and “subjective” theories of art.
The orthodox (some of them?) tell us that Shakespeare was apparently an objective artist whose works stand on their own. He was a workaday man who wrote plays for profit and there is no hidden significance to be interpreted. The unorthodox would have us believe that the author’s life and the people he knew strongly influenced the works, to the point where the works themselves can help fill in a missing biography. He was a man who didn’t care about money and whose sensitive nature is visible in the works.
I find the orthodox position (if this is an accurate representation of it- it may be dated) baffling. I cannot believe that Hamlet is devoid of subjective intent. In fairness to the orthodox, the attempt to reduce Shakespeare to a force of nature seems in part a backlash to their own excesses in the past, where scholars painted fanciful biographies for the man from Strafrord. I’ll have to delve into some of their works soon.
So, what are you reading?
Still on Future Shock, 12 Commandments, Closing of the American Mind, Beyond Good and Evil and The Book of Knowledge. Picking up The Neoconservative Persuasion, a collection of Irving Kristol essays. Will probably read some C. S. Lewis for Christmas.
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