Post
by apophenia » Wed Sep 28, 2011 8:02 am
I just finished Michelle Goldman's "Kingdom Coming" about the religious right's design on, if not world domination, at least dominion over 2-3 branches of American government with the concomitant control over culture, ideology, arts and the wallet — and the vote — of Joe six-pack. It was an enjoyable, sometimes frightening, and for the novice, angering, look at a slice of American pie that is only goodness and lace on the surface. The lingering references to Hannah Arendt's tome on totalitarianism, and the all too real possibility that another Germany could happen here, make it engaging reading. Sadly, in an afterword, and a youtube video, she makes clear that her profile was just that, a profile, not a fair and balanced assessment, so while the elements certainly exist, her early polemic is alarmist, and only later measured with calm sobriety; and it's hard to unring that bell once rung.
What else. One of my book clubs is reading Dawkins' The Blind Watchmaker. Unfortunately, I was not on the ball, so the seats for the discussion group filled before I knew it had even been announced. That combined with being relatively savvy about evolution for a layperson with no formal background, I'll likely end up being bored for hours on end without any notches on my belt to show for it. When I added my name to the waiting list, I was third in line for a spot; since then, a fourth has signed on. That's going backwards, not forwards.
In other areas, my philosophy group chose to tackle Wittgenstein's magnum opus, the Philosophical Investigations (there are two Wittgensteins — the later Wittgenstein, represented by the Investigations, and the early Wittgenstein, represented by the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus). I was running behind the day of the first bull session, and while I only had two hours of reading remaining, and 3-4 hours to do it in, I suddenly realized how monumentally bored I was by what he had said and was likely to say. I stopped right there and abandoned my fellows completely. I recognize he wrote the Investigations 60 years ago, and that he never organized them into a book or argument (they were arranged and published post-humously), but in my view, the last 60 years of philosophy of mind, sociology, psychology and neuroscience have passed 1950s Wittgenstein by — what he had to say then is either superseded, much better understood, or completely irrelevant in the face of contemporary knowledge and ideas (the field of linguistics and the revolutions wrought by people like Chomsky make Wittgenstein's inchoate fumblings appear downright quaint). My philosophy group will meet at least one more time to discuss the Investigations, and, though it will be akin to pulling teeth, I will shoulder my burden for the greater good the opportunity to appear superficially hip and prescient.
My secular bible study group is doing something about whether Jesus is still froopy if you take away his role in the Christian faith. I'll be getting something of a pass to return to my own obsessions in the coming months. I know one book club is hosting books in October and November that I have zero interest in. So perhaps I'll find time to read a couple of good books on Chinese philosophy in the Hundred Schools period ("A Daoist Theory of Chinese Thought" by Hansen, "Disputers of the Tao" by A.C. Graham, and "A History of Chinese Philosophy, Volume 1" by Fung Yu-Lan [being the longer version of his "A Short History of Chinese Philosophy",] and though I try to resist, I have an absolutely delectable volume of "Sources of Chinese Tradition" which beckons to me like the moans of a lover sleeping next to me).
The group I met with tonight has a juicy selection on deck for next time, which I unfortunately do not recall.
I'm excited to give the one group a pass as it allows me to indulge in some guilty pleasures, to actually get around to readings such as Damasio's "Descartes Error", a couple of books on dialetheism that I've been chomping at the bit to read (a dialethea being a statement which is both true and false, dialetheism being the epistemological theory and procedures for maintaining order in the face of such ill-behaved creatures — if possible), and Pascal Boyer's "Religion Explained" which gives an anthropologist's account of what does and does not make a religion a religion (and while I've only read a few chapters, it isn't your typically well-meaning but ill-informed speculating). But Boyer may wait, as I intend to propose it to a group for their reading.
With winter coming on, I'll do my best to deplete the list of books that I've been itching to read while balancing the needs of my various discussion groups. Come the turn of the year, I expect to turn once again to an informal attempt to educate myself about philosophy by finishing where I left off in Hume's Treatise, reading Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (along with "helper books") and moving on to Schopenhauer's The World As Will and Representation, and a selection from a Frege reader. With any luck, I'll reach the 20th century philosophers accompanied by the song of the Robin. In. my. dreams. Who knows what actual rot I will have read by then, but that's the plan.
How do other people manage their reading needs/wants/folly?
I'm a slow reader, barely pushing 30-35 pages an hour, and I am in utter awe of people who read whole sets of novels in a month.
Anyway, "The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men, gang aft agley."
