OS Book Club Pt II

[DieHardYankee26]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

So Anti-Intellectualism in American Life was the pick and it's 400+ pages, which wouldn't be an issue...except that it's one of those Kindle books with weird page designations like Meditations where every page is 3 turns instead of 2, it throws me off. Feels like the book is longer than it really is. It's also very dense, so it's taking a while to read but it's got so much great information in it.

Spoiler

The introduction was basically him defining the key terms, laying out what the purpose of the book was. He explains the difference between intelligence and intellect, "Whereas intelligence seeks to grasp, manipulate, re-order, adjust, intellect examines, ponders, wonders, theorizes, criticizes, imagines. Intelligence will seize the immediate meaning in a situation and evaluate it. Intellect evaluates evaluations, and looks for the meanings of situations as a whole." Pretty much memorization vs interpretation. It's interesting reading his thoughts because it was written in the 60's but still very pertinent:

"In the original American populistic dream, the omnicompetence of the common man was fundamental and indispensable. It was believed that he could, without much special preparation, pursue the professions and run the government. Today, he knows that he cannot even make his breakfast without using devices, more or less mysterious to him, which expertise has put at his disposal; and when he sits down to breakfast and looks at his morning newspaper, he reads about a whole range of vital and intricate issues and acknowledges, if he is candid with himself, that he has not acquired competence to judge most of them."

"The original American hope for the world - in so far as the older American thought about the world at all - was that it might save itself by emulating the American system - that i, by dropping formal ideologies, accepting our type of democracy, applying itself to work and the arduous pursuit of happiness, and by following the dictates of common sense. The irony is that Americans now suffer as much from the victory as from the defeat of these aspirations."

Part II, first real part, is about religion and how as the country grew and people moved west, centralized churches lost power as they just couldn't keep up with the size of the growing populace. This basically started a war between the "establishment" and the idea of personal salvation, basically tying back into the Revolutionary sentiment. When the Great Awakening hit, evangelists took over picking up people in places too remote to be with a church. Things were moving so fast after the Revolution that in 1790, 90% of Americans weren't part of a church. The basic point is that as centralized religions, the only entity available at the time to promote education and the source of most colleges to a degree in the first place, lost power and religion became kinda democratized and made personal, animosity built between the groups.

I'm gonna try to read a part a day, tons of interesting information. Next part is about the politics of democracy, I'm expecting an Andrew Jackson sighting.

I added a book called The Book of Broken Promises to my list which is about when the government gave the big telecom companies a few hundred billion to lay fiber over the whole country and they ate it instead. I know a little about it as I've read a few articles but I don't have all the details. In particular, I wasn't old enough to see the old AT&T before they got split into the Baby Bells so I'm hoping it gets into that. I want to learn more about these huge mergers and whatnot.

Right after this though, I'm going to want to do something short and fictional. I was choosing between Of Mice and Men (which I've never read) and Huck Finn (also never read) but Of Mice and Men is so short I might just have to do both of them.

[War Eagle!]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

Right after this though, I'm going to want to do something short and fictional. I was choosing between Of Mice and Men (which I've never read) and Huck Finn (also never read) but Of Mice and Men is so short I might just have to do both of them.

Of Mice and Men gets my vote. Say George we gone live off the fat of the land and we gone have wabbits!

[Fresh Tendrils]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

I would do them both. Of Mice and Men is so short, but its powerful. Huck Finn I have always preferred to Tom Sawyer personally.

[DieHardYankee26]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

Both for sure. I was so surprised to look up Of Mice and Men and see it's less than 100 pages.

https://geediting.com/blog/most-iconic-book-set-in-every-country/

I had found this list of iconic books set in every country which is what made me think of Huck Finn (actually they chose Tom Sawyer but all the comments I saw said "Huck Finn is much more appropriate than Tom Sawyer" so I chose that).

[DieHardYankee26]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

Got through Part 3 of Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, following the strains of it through politics.

Spoiler

Starts off at the Founding Fathers, obviously a group who cherished intellect and used it to their advantage but points out that it can lead to different conclusions. "The generation which wrote the Declaration of Independence also wrote the Alien and Sedition Acts." From there he gets into Jefferson, who was ridiculed as a dreamer and someone whose intellect caused him to have trouble dealing with reality. He could've made a similar point with John Adams, who people thought was cold and harsh because of his rational mind and lack of feelings. The thing that saved them was the Revolution earned them infinite clout.

Andrew Jackson comes in and says the common man knows what's best for himself, distrusts experts or a strong centralized government. The campaign between him and John Quincy Adams was billed as one between "Andrew Jackson who can fight and John Quincy Adams who can write." The politics became muddy and barbs thrown, associating intellect with lack of physical power.

He puts in the spoils system, corrupting government in plain view. People want reform. Reform is fought against by those who don't to get rid of the spoils system, under the guise that forcing them to choose experts in given fields would take jobs away from the common man. Also, at the time morality was thought to be the work of women, while men handled business and did the dirty work. So anyone interested in reform was looked down on as a sissy.

Enter Teddy Roosevelt, shattering that. "A citified, commercial civilization, bedeviled by serious depression and troubled for the first time by the fear of decadence, greeted Roosevelt as the harbinger of a new and more vigorous and masculine generation. Roosevelt, paved the way for Progressivism by belong to restore prestige to educated patricians who were interested in reform, by reinvesting their type with the male virtues." If Teddy the war hero is doing it, it must not be for women lol. Intellectuals thought they had their guy in Woodrow Wilson, but he was a disappointment.

Depression hits and expertise becomes the most vital quality in the country trying to get through all the catastrophe. FDR and the New Deal call on professors and experts in all field to figure out what the **** is going on and get us back to health. Him being surrounded by them made the public weary of their influence.

After the end of King FDR's 4 terms and Truman, the country was ready for change. Eisenhower, though undoubtedly an expert in his own right, didn't have as much respect for education as practical experience. He went against Adlai Stevenson, the intellectuals' favorite. Interesting here is a comment from a woman to the Detroit News in 1952: "We should have something in common with a candidate for president, and that's why I'm voting for Eisenhower." Might be the first instance of "he looks like a cool guy to have a beer with". But it wasn't Stevenson's intellectual tendencies that buried him as much as his confidence because...


JFK won. "Kennedy seems to have brought back to presidential politics the combination of intellect and character shown at the beginning of the century by TR - a combination in which a respect for intellectual and cultural distinction and a passion for intelligence and expertise in public service are united with the aggressive and practical virtues."

Interesting point:" One of the difficulties in the relation of intellectual to power is that certain primary functions of intellectual are widely felt to be threatened almost as much by being associated with power as by being relegated to a position of impotence. An acute and paradoxical problem as intellect as a force in modern society stems from the fact that it cannot lightly reconcile itself either to its association to power or to its exclusion from an important political role." Basically, smart person in power is assumed to have ulterior motives, smart power without a position of power is ignored because if they were really smart they'd have a position of power.

Next part is called The Practical Culture, I assume it'll be blue collar vs white collar type stuff.

[War Eagle!]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

Completed the Richest Man in Babylon.

The Richest Man in Babylon is a book of wisdom that can enable men to become wealthy. In it contains testimonies of a man that built wealth in ancient Babylon and the discipline of how he built it.

Unlike other wealth building books on the market this one addressed various psychological states of different men who journeyed this road. In the addressing of these men we are met with cures for their varying ailments. Cures which were reinforced through the testimonies of characters possessing similar backgrounds with vastly different fates as the tale progressed.

All in all the book was well written. The examples provided along with comparative analysis presents a unique challenge when considering one's own state of being. The tale was much more than how to build wealth in that it was also a tale of the benefits of seeking and gaining knowledge. As often you will find that there are always going to be people who are willing to help you accomplish the desires you set out to fulfill.



Sent from my SM-N920T using Operation Sports mobile app

[DieHardYankee26]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

Finished Part 4, about practicality and the role of business in the eschewing of intellect:

Spoiler

"The Anti-Intellectualism of businessmen, interpreted narrowly as hostility to intellectuals, is mainly a political phenomenon. But interpreted more broadly as a suspicion of intellect itself, it is part of the extensive American devotion to practicality and direct experience which ramifications through almost every part of American life."

Basically tracing the ideology that an art degree is a useless degree back a few centuries lol. In early America, the richest were those who could master the intracacies of overseas trade. Naturally, they were more learned than the average colonist and came into contact with other educated people in their travels. In this time when everyone was a farmer, the merchant justified their use by the additions they made to culture.

"With the relative decline in the importance of commerce and the rise in manufacturing, a smaller part of the business community was exposed to the enlarging, cosmopolitan effects of overseas trade. The American economy and the American mind began to face inward and to become more self contained."

From this, the myth of the self made man takes over. This man doesn't need a formal education to fend for himself, he just pulls himself up by his bootstraps and makes **** happen. With this comes the belief that great character is more integral to success as a business man than formal knowledge. "The preference for vocationalism is linked to a preference for character - or personality - over mind, and for conformity and manipulative facility over individuality and talent." Essentially, one is more useful pulling a lever than sitting on their porch thinking all day, so we'll prioritize pulling levers. With this he gets back into religion, as there were a bevy of self help books released with the moral being that God is the way to success and that success is the way to God. "The process represents, I believe, not a victory for religion but a fundamental, if largely unconscious, secularization of the American middle class mind. Religion has been supplanted, not, to be sure, by a consciously secular philosophy, but by mental self manipulation, by a kind of faith in magic. Both religion and the sense of worldly reality suffer."

There's a whole chapter on farming. Following the progression of it. Basically, at one point, 90% of the US was farmers and 85% of the farmers believed they didn't need to be educated in any way. After almost 100 years, legislation was eventually passed down to allow for agricultural study and to maximize crop yields. Just interesting how long it took. "The essential point here is that this much needed fusion [of formal education and practical knowledge] was achieved only agree a century of agitation by agricultural reformers in the teeth of a widespread and extremely obstinate conviction among working farmers that theory has nothing to offer practice."

Finally gets into the labor movement. Talks about how the intellectuals involved were almost always trying to push a bigger agenda than the workers themselves (ie Socialism, Communism) when people just wanted less hours lol. Interesting comparison between the Socialist and Communist Parties: "The change in the balance of power was dramatic: in Socialist Party circles one senses the discomfort of true proletarian at the thought that the intellectuals among them wield so much influenxe; in Communist party circles one is aware of the anguish of party or fellow - traveling intellectuals because they are not, by occupation or birth, workers themselves."

Next section is on education, then the conclusion. I should be able to finish tomorrow. Then, Of Mice and Men, Huck Finn, and then I'm gonna read the Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead because I put a hold on it at my library a while ago and now my loan runs out in 9 days.

[aukevin]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

I saw some old posts where Beantown mentioned reading the Dark Tower series by Stephen King. After seeing the trailer for the new movie a couple weeks ago I thought I would listen to the first book and see what it is like. Two thirds through the book, it seems pretty different than what the trailer for the movie shows. Does anyone know if they are suppose to be the same or is the movie set up to take parts of all the written books and put them into one movie?

[Beantown]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

I saw some old posts where Beantown mentioned reading the Dark Tower series by Stephen King. After seeing the trailer for the new movie a couple weeks ago I thought I would listen to the first book and see what it is like. Two thirds through the book, it seems pretty different than what the trailer for the movie shows. Does anyone know if they are suppose to be the same or is the movie set up to take parts of all the written books and put them into one movie?

The movie is a...re-imagining, of sorts. It's not an adaptation, it's a different take on it.

[Fresh Tendrils]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

Interesting to know. Now I won't press myself so hard to read Book I before the movie.

[aukevin]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

The movie is a...re-imagining, of sorts. It's not an adaptation, it's a different take on it.

That's good I guess. I was just wondering how much of the movie will spoil the books if I continue the series. Thanks.

[DieHardYankee26]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

Finished Anti-Intellectualism. Oh man, such a relief. Great, great book but not fun to read at all. I went on Amazon to see what else he's written and I think I'll end up reading more of his stuff, especially The American Political Tradition, which is a book of essays that follows changes in political thought through all the presidents.

Part V - Education

Spoiler

We were the second people to establish free common school, after Prussia, but didn't want to support it. "They would stand close to the vanguard among the countries of the world in the attempt to diffuse knowledge among the people, and then engage drifters and misfits as teachers and offer them the wages of draymen." Kinda interesting how that played out. Over time they came to decide that it was hard to find good teachers, so they settled for whatever, and then because the teachers sucked, they decided it must not be a profession worth paying. Also, it's a public position. So they put it under the umbrella of "can't pay public officials too much" but I guess ignored the Founding Fathers who also knew the presidency couldn't be paid too little or it would shrink the pool.

What helped was women teachers. Also interesting because the fact that so many women went to teach reinforced the idea that the position didn't need to be well paid because they thought women didn't need to be paid anything, catch-22 there I guess. Old stats but "in 1953 this country stood almost alone among the nations of the world in its feminization of teaching: women constituted ninte-three percent of its primary teachers and sixty percent of its secondary teachers. Only one country in Western Europe (Italy, with fifty-two percent) employed women for more than half of its secondary school personnel."

Gets into why it became harder to get good teachers. As education became more widespread, the need for great teachers at the university level to make something out of them and the higher pay made it worse for lower levels. Fights over what the purpose of school was. Universities said should be to prepare the mind, others said to prepare for work. When immigrants started pouring in in the early 20th century they scrambled to make an effort to teach how to be a good citizen so that kids could go home and teach their parents. They basically kept changing the focus of education away from critical thinking more toward utility or practicality. In 1893, there for 40 subjects, 27 real ones. By 1941, there were 274+, 59 of which "could be classified as academic studies." (as opposed to vocational.

Their justification for the vocation focus in education was that 60% of kids had no shot at success if educated in a way to promote their own thinking, and had to be taught to work instead. Then they tried to argue that because learning doesn't compound, it doesn't make sense to keep doing the same subjects as if it reinforces it (which obviously it does). Lots about John Dewey.

Conclusion

Spoiler

Basically sums everything up. Talks about artists and alienation in his time.

"We have learned so well how to absorb novelty that receptivity itself has turned into a kind of tradition - "the tradition of the new."

"Alienation has ceased to be merely a fact of life and has taken on the character of a cure or a prescription for the proper intellectual regimen."

"Once one has accepted the idea that alienation is an inevitable consequence of the assertion of certain artistic or political values, it is easy to slip into the assumption that alienation has a kind of value in itself, much as one may assume that because genius is commonly "temperamental" one can begin to have the manifestations of genius by cultivating temperament."

"Our society is sick in may ways; but such health as it has lies in the plurality of the elements composing it and that freedom to interact with each other."

Very true for today: "Dogmatic, apocalyptic predictions about the collapse of liberal culture as the disappearance of high culture may be right or wrong; but one thing about them seems certain: they are more likely to instill self-pity and despair than the will to resist or the confidence to make the most of one's creative energies."

Feel like I just took an American History course. Amazing book, I loved it, but it'll be a minute before I jump into something similar. On to Of Mice and Men and Huck Finn.

[Beantown]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

That's good I guess. I was just wondering how much of the movie will spoil the books if I continue the series. Thanks.

It shouldn't spoil anything about the series, as far as I know. It's supposedly a new story that follows the base plot of The Gunslinger ("The Man in Black fled across the desert and the Gunslinger followed.") but everything else I've read about the synopsis of the movie seems different from the novel.

[DieHardYankee26]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

Read Of Mice and Men yesterday. I've heard so much about it, didn't know what to expect, even went after to read people's opinions. It was good, I guess I've read a lot of sad stuff already so that didn't really move the needle one way or the other. After like 20 pages, you know what's gonna happen.

Probably because of all the stuff I'm reading but Crooks stood out to me the most. Dude just minding his own business, people just disrespecting him because they can. Desperate just for anyone to talk to. Sad to see the tiny bit of hope he had when he asked them if they'd take him with them and then the realization after Curley's wife comes in that it can never happen.

Weird that it's banned or causes so much controversy. Speaking of controversial books, I kinda wanna read 13 Reasons Why. The show has gotten so much press, its an interesting concept.

On to Huck Finn. See what Jim's talking about.

[Fresh Tendrils]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

There is a "spiritual sequel" to Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Jon Clinch titled Finn: A Novel. It is based upon essentially only a sentence/paragraph of information from Twain's Adventure. The concept sounded interesting to me, but I have not read it despite having it in my library since it was released almost 10 years ago.

I finally finished The Social Contract by Rousseau. Its a short read being roughly 100 pages and I basically read a section or two per week. I found out early on that the diction combined with Rousseau's tendency to ramble and go on tangents would tire me out if I read any more than that at a time. The end of the book is more or less a short historical account of Rome's political system detailing its structure and its inevitable downfall. On its own this portion was fairly interesting, but other than seeing where some of his ideas came from it felt like a random way to end things on.

There's a lot of points throughout the book to debate upon and each section provides at least one quotable passage. Some things come across as Utopian day-dreams when compared to current systems (Rousseau's want for division-less politics, for one) while others seem fairly obvious even in today's world. Although he doesn't endorse one form of government over another (advocating different systems work for different people) its clear that he prefers representative government over others and leans more towards socialism than most are probably comfortable with.

Still, his core ideals are interesting and to think about their implementation is fascinating to me. Most of them are not totally off base even in today's world, but there are points where Rousseau has trouble (or outright does not) reconciling his ideals to the government form.

Overall I would say everyone who is interested in politics at all or history should read this book. While Rousseau can ramble and go on tangents the core of his ideals are all very interesting to me. I feel if he had limited himself to about half the space then this would come off in a more profound manner rather than a string of seemingly unending thoughts on government structure and freedom vs liberty.

He ends the book with probably the best quote I can think of to end anything:

I ought throughout to have kept to a more limited sphere.

Of course there are a lot of good quotes throughout and I'll leave some examples that resonated with me:

Spoiler

It will always be equally foolish for a man to say to a man or a people: "I make with you a convention wholly at your expense and wholly to my advantage; I shall keep it as long as I like, and you will keep it as long as I like."

As I was born a citizen of a free State, and a member of the Sovereign, I feel that, however feeble the influence of my voice can have on public affairs, the right of voting on them makes it my duty to study them; and I am happy, when I reflect upon governments, to find my inquiries always furnish me with new reasons for loving that of my own country.

Good laws lead to the making of better ones; bad ones bring about worse. As soon as any man says of the affairs of the State, "What does it matter me?" the State may be given up for lost.

To decide that the son of a slave is born a slave is to decide that he is not born a man.