Ship of Fools: Required reading

Thread: Required reading Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Russ (# 120) on :

Imagine that in some improbable future a new polity is being set up - perhaps a space colony or a post-apocalyptic settlement. Imagine that the founding fathers decide that no-one should play a role in the government - either as a citizen-elector or as member of the governing council - without some training for the role. Imagine that the training is to consist of reading and demonstrating comprehension of one or more books. Imagine that it falls to you to select the book or books. Which would you choose ?

Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on :

"Lord of the Flies" would be a good start.

Posted by Garasu (# 17152) on :

I was thinking of Ursula Le Guin's The dispossessed.

Posted by Beeswax Altar (# 11644) on :

A Canticle for Leibowitz

Posted by agingjb (# 16555) on :

"Imagine that the training is to consist of reading and demonstrating comprehension of one or more books."

Interesting criterion. If we skip over the usual "Bible and Shakespeare" ( perfectly good candidates for demonstrating comprehension as well as their other merits), and also just those books I like, I'll throw in some other (very) less obvious choices:

Landau: Foundations of Analysis.

Hume: A Treatise of Human Nature.

Not what I'd advocate as "essential reading" perhaps; I'd add the works of John Rawls, and Eliot's Four Quartets as midway points between books for comprehension, as required by the OP, and imparting ideas that I would recommend.

Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on :

As an American, I find the U.S. Declaration of Independence useful.

You would have to edit out that part that talks about all men having certain unalienable rights, since your society is proposing that those rights be contingent on required reading.

Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Garasu:
I was thinking of Ursula Le Guin's The dispossessed.

Are you hoping they will recreate the government of Anarres, Urras, both, or neither?

Posted by HCH (# 14313) on :

--- "The One-Minute Manager"

--- "The Boy Scout Handbook"

--- "Peopleware"

--- a good one-volume summary of the history of almost any nation or town

Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Garasu:
I was thinking of Ursula Le Guin's The dispossessed.

Ah, one of my very favourite novels! On similar lines, in terms of looking at the idea of setting up a new society with a (to some extent) blank slate, I'd suggest the Mars Trilogy. They are a bit lengthy, mind you.

Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :

quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:

quote:
Originally posted by Garasu:
I was thinking of Ursula Le Guin's The dispossessed.
Ah, one of my very favourite novels! On similar lines, in terms of looking at the idea of setting up a new society with a (to some extent) blank slate...

Pending Garasu's answer, I'll put you down as a closet Annaresti then. If so, I have two objections.

Firstly, you don't have a blank slate to start from. My main takeaway from that novel was that anarchism is an ideological luxury that requires a capitalistic counterpart to survive - if the Annaresti had had a blank slate they'd have died off pretty fast.

Secondly, you don't get what you (presumably) hoped for*. In the absence of strong leadership, the place ends up getting run by the ever-expanding bureaucracy.

*Unless of course you are on the B Ark...

[ 11. May 2014, 21:24: Message edited by: Eutychus ]

Posted by Gildas (# 525) on :

I would probably go for:

The Republic by Plato, the Ethics (both of them) and the Politics of Aristotle, the Bible, the works of Lucretius, and Cicero, and Epictetus, and Augustine and Bede, and Benedict, and Boniface and the Beowulf poet, and Anselm, and Aquinas, and Ockham, and Chaucer, and the Pearl and Guwain guy, and Fortescue, and Malory, and Shakespeare, and the Levellers and Milton, and Pope, and Locke, and Hume and Gibbon, and Austen, Byron, Shelley and Blake and Kierkegaard, and Macaulay and Mill and George Eliot and Dickens and Shaw, Ibsen Forster and Woolf, and Barth and Bonhoeffer and T.S Eliot, and De Lubac, and Sartre and Camus and Durrenmatt and Berlin and Popper and Gellner and Habermas and Hill and MacIntyre.

And anyone who thought this was exhaustive and definitive would get an automatic fail.

Posted by agingjb (# 16555) on :

Well yes, I wouldn't question any of those (and I'd add some mathematical and scientific classics), but the the OP said quite explicitly "reading for comprehension" and (it seemed to me) implied one book, or at most a few.

Posted by Porridge (# 15405) on :

Given the abuses to which literacy tests have been put within living memory in the U.S., I'd recommend rebellion.

There are 45 folks on my case load right now. All have the right to vote. Only 4 can read beyond second-grade level.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

Animal Farm

Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on :

Dostoyevsky's Demons (or Devils, however one wishes to translate it).

Posted by Hairy Biker (# 12086) on :

Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gildas:
I would probably go for:

The Republic by Plato, the Ethics (both of them) and the Politics of Aristotle, the Bible, the works of Lucretius, and Cicero, and Epictetus, and Augustine and Bede, and Benedict, and Boniface and the Beowulf poet, and Anselm, and Aquinas, and Ockham, and Chaucer, and the Pearl and Guwain guy, and Fortescue, and Malory, and Shakespeare, and the Levellers and Milton, and Pope, and Locke, and Hume and Gibbon, and Austen, Byron, Shelley and Blake and Kierkegaard, and Macaulay and Mill and George Eliot and Dickens and Shaw, Ibsen Forster and Woolf, and Barth and Bonhoeffer and T.S Eliot, and De Lubac, and Sartre and Camus and Durrenmatt and Berlin and Popper and Gellner and Habermas and Hill and MacIntyre.

And anyone who thought this was exhaustive and definitive would get an automatic fail.

Hmm, well, the fact that you yourself recognize that it could be seen as "exhaustive and definitive" might indicate that you protest a bit too much when you dismiss the idea that it is.

While I don't doubt that you have gleaned useful stuff from the books you list, to me, it does kinda read like some "Great Books Of Mankind" infommercial, where they tell you that you need to order all these books because they've been declared TGBOM, without actually telling you what the justifying content is.

Posted by The Silent Acolyte (# 1158) on :

quote:
Originally posted by HCH:
"The One-Minute Manager"

This is a postively appalling book measured on any axis.

Posted by bib (# 13074) on :

The Magna Carta is a good starting point. I've also found the social commentary contained in Jane Austen's works valuable in looking at how societies function(and they are enjoyable to read).

Posted by Lord Jestocost (# 12909) on :

The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, by Emmanuel Goldstein.

Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Hairy Biker:
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

First book that popped into my mind too [Smile]

Huia

Posted by Galilit (# 16470) on :

Agree on The Dispossessed
Would add Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban
and The Red Tent by Anita Diamant

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

Kafka - The Trial
Proust - Remembrance of Things Past
Solzhenitsyn - The Gulag Archipelago

Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Galilit:
Agree on The Dispossessed

But why? What lessons would you hope they learned?

Posted by Erroneous Monk (# 10858) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Huia:

quote:
Originally posted by Hairy Biker:
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
First book that popped into my mind too

Huia

Though if we were only allowed one "children's" book, I'd be making the case for The Tiger Who Came To Tea.

Posted by cheesymarzipan (# 9442) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
Given the abuses to which literacy tests have been put within living memory in the U.S., I'd recommend rebellion.

There are 45 folks on my case load right now. All have the right to vote. Only 4 can read beyond second-grade level.

What if there were an option to listen to (unabridged) audio versions of the book & demonstrate comprehension that way?
Though I would hope that any place that operated this system would have supports in place to ensure universal literacy or as close as possible to that

Posted by George Spigot (# 253) on :

@Gildas Why the bible? Wont they have enough problems to deal with as it is?

Posted by Higgs Bosun (# 16582) on :

For those who would be in the governing group, I would require some understanding of the volumes of Richard Feynman's Lectures on Physics.

It seems to me that lack of knowledge of science is something which plagues most current legislatures.

Posted by pimple (# 10635) on :

David Eagleman - INCOGNITO

Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :

I can't believe that nobody has mentioned Machiavelli's The Prince yet...

Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on :

Apart from the Bible (and, George Spigot, its problems are its appeal), I would say (just off the top of my head):

1984 by George Orwell

The Visit, a play by Friedrich Dürrenmatt

Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky

Miracles by CS Lewis

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Posted by Caissa (# 16710) on :

The Communist Manifesto

Posted by HCH (# 14313) on :

To Silent Acolyte: tongue in cheek. (I assume many of these other answers are also not serious. It is hard to take Gildas's list seriously, for instance.)

Posted by Ikkyu (# 15207) on :

Dao De Jing

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

Leviathan - Hobbes

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

Well, skipping over some of the suggestions to read the entire Western Canon before you're allowed to vote, I'll make my mark for Darrell Huff's "How to lie with statistics" - it's a slim paperback, doesn't require advanced mathematic or linguistic skills, but if people read and understood it, we'd suffer from far less idiocy.

Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cheesymarzipan:

quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
Given the abuses to which literacy tests have been put within living memory in the U.S., I'd recommend rebellion.

There are 45 folks on my case load right now. All have the right to vote. Only 4 can read beyond second-grade level.
What if there were an option to listen to (unabridged) audio versions of the book & demonstrate comprehension that way?

There are still a lot of people who would have trouble comprehending most of the books listed on this thread. I'd be less disturbed if any would-be legislator had to show such ability--even that feels elitist, but less so than the de facto money requirements in the US--but to require it for voting seems very dangerous to me.

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

No. 1 was my 1st. No. 3 I was only rhapsodizing over on Saturday and No. 2, yep.

And Brave New World.

Posted by Yonatan (# 11091) on :

I'll second Brave New World.

Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
No. 2, yep.

I really liked The Dispossessed too, but despite it being mentioned several times, so far nobody on here has enlightened me as to what our new bunch of Founding Fathers are supposed to learn from it that will be useful for constructing their brave new world. That they need to bring a capitalist one along in tow?

Posted by HCH (# 14313) on :

The premise for the thread worries me a bit. I might worry more about the character and judgement of a leader than about his or her education. I suppose it is easier to list books than to address such other matters.

Posted by agingjb (# 16555) on :

It had seemed to me that the premise of the thread was not to propose books that would form a basis or canon for a continuation or establishment of a culture, but one or a few books which demanded an understanding to some extent separate from content or even relevance.

Clearly my understanding was absolutely different from the consensus of the thread.

Posted by Gildas (# 525) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:

quote:
Originally posted by Gildas:
I would probably go for:

The Republic by Plato, the Ethics (both of them) and the Politics of Aristotle, the Bible, the works of Lucretius, and Cicero, and Epictetus, and Augustine and Bede, and Benedict, and Boniface and the Beowulf poet, and Anselm, and Aquinas, and Ockham, and Chaucer, and the Pearl and Guwain guy, and Fortescue, and Malory, and Shakespeare, and the Levellers and Milton, and Pope, and Locke, and Hume and Gibbon, and Austen, Byron, Shelley and Blake and Kierkegaard, and Macaulay and Mill and George Eliot and Dickens and Shaw, Ibsen Forster and Woolf, and Barth and Bonhoeffer and T.S Eliot, and De Lubac, and Sartre and Camus and Durrenmatt and Berlin and Popper and Gellner and Habermas and Hill and MacIntyre.

And anyone who thought this was exhaustive and definitive would get an automatic fail.
Hmm, well, the fact that you yourself recognize that it could be seen as "exhaustive and definitive" might indicate that you protest a bit too much when you dismiss the idea that it is.

While I don't doubt that you have gleaned useful stuff from the books you list, to me, it does kinda read like some "Great Books Of Mankind" infommercial, where they tell you that you need to order all these books because they've been declared TGBOM, without actually telling you what the justifying content is.

OK, boringly, we're going into space, so our tech means we are taking libraries (E-books and not individual volumes). We don't have an infinite library at our behest but we don't have to agonize infinitely as to whether or not to take "Being and Time" or "Aunts aren't gentlemen". Of course, that doesn't deny that any such element involves an element of parlour game.

Secondly, we ought to take a plurality of volumes, just because. To be well read is to own or to have access to a library, not a book, and your library will not necessarily back you up all the way.

Thirdly, at some point we will come up against the incommensurability of human values and if we have a big library we will at least be aware of that. Whatever happens we won't have a long list of books that all agree with one another, but it doesn't follow from that we ought to dismiss them. My list isn't definitive, but it is varied (albeit challengable) but a purely Marxist, or Thomist or whatever list would be just plain wrong.

Obviously, one's mileage will vary.

Posted by Olaf (# 11804) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Animal Farm

Ditto.

Posted by Nicolemr (# 28) on :

Origin of Species by Darwin.

Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :

In Arthur C. Clarke's Songs of a distant Earth the exiles get to take a broad swathe of literature and cultural artefacts except anything mentioning religion.

Posted by Timothy the Obscure (# 292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Olaf:

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Animal Farm
Ditto.

And likewise. Not least because you don't need to be a philosopher king to understand it.

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

The Collected Essays, Articles and Reviews of George Orwell

Lampedusa's 'The Leopard'

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
As an American, I find the U.S. Declaration of Independence useful.

You would have to edit out that part that talks about all men having certain unalienable rights, since your society is proposing that those rights be contingent on required reading.

Why? The founding fathers didn't feel the need to edit out that bit, even though they were essentially proposing that those rights be contingent on being white.

Posted by The Phantom Flan Flinger (# 8891) on :

Catch-22

Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy - cos you'd need to demonstrate a sense of humour as well as other qualities.

Posted by Cedd007 (# 16180) on :

'Surface tension' by James Blish; and the British Library booklet 'Basic preservation'

Posted by Heavenly Anarchist (# 13313) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Olaf:

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Animal Farm
Ditto.

Yes, the opening scenario wants the electors to be able to comprehend the book so Animal Farm would be an approachable one for various levels of capability. Of course, this assumes the aim is for a fair society, obviously if you wanted to disenfranchise some of the population it might be a different matter...

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Caissa:
The Communist Manifesto

Pah. One might as well suggest Mein Kampf or Atlas Shrugged. [Disappointed]

Posted by ToujoursDan (# 10578) on :

Another vote for "Brave New World".

"Collapse: How societies choose to fail, or succeed" by Jared Diamond.

Posted by Russ (# 120) on :

Some great suggestions, and some books I haven't read and should.

Intrigued by Gildas' suggestion of a long list. Would be a colony governed by the elders, with a steep requirement for becoming an elder. I take it as a serious proposition, despite current orthodoxy in favour of full adulthood at 18 or 21.

Some of the other suggestions, excellent books with something to say about the art of governing, seem like good candidates for inclusion on a long list. Who would argue with Brave New World as one book on a degree-length course on how to govern ? But alone as the single best "training" literature can provide ?

Given its impact, there's perhaps a case for the Communist Manifesto. What would you pair it with ? What book would best illustrate why communism doesn't work ?

Best wishes,

Russ

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