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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Required reading
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
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 ?
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
"Lord of the Flies" would be a good start.
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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Garasu
Shipmate
# 17152
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Posted
I was thinking of Ursula Le Guin's The dispossessed.
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"Could I believe in the doctrine without believing in the deity?". - Modesitt, L. E., Jr., 1943- Imager.
Posts: 889 | From: Surrey Heath (England) | Registered: Jun 2012
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
A Canticle for Leibowitz
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
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agingjb
Shipmate
# 16555
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Posted
"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.
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Refraction Villanelles
Posts: 464 | From: Southern England | Registered: Jul 2011
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
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.
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
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?
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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HCH
Shipmate
# 14313
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Posted
--- "The One-Minute Manager"
--- "The Boy Scout Handbook"
--- "Peopleware"
--- a good one-volume summary of the history of almost any nation or town
Posts: 1540 | From: Illinois, USA | Registered: Nov 2008
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South Coast Kevin
Shipmate
# 16130
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Posted
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.
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My blog - wondering about Christianity in the 21st century, chess, music, politics and other bits and bobs.
Posts: 3309 | From: The south coast (of England) | Registered: Jan 2011
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
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 ]
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
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.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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agingjb
Shipmate
# 16555
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Posted
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.
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Refraction Villanelles
Posts: 464 | From: Southern England | Registered: Jul 2011
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
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.
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
Animal Farm
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Ad Orientem
Shipmate
# 17574
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Posted
Dostoyevsky's Demons (or Devils, however one wishes to translate it).
Posts: 2606 | From: Finland | Registered: Feb 2013
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Hairy Biker
Shipmate
# 12086
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Posted
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
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there [are] four important things in life: religion, love, art and science. At their best, they’re all just tools to help you find a path through the darkness. None of them really work that well, but they help.
Damien Hirst
Posts: 683 | From: This Sceptred Isle | Registered: Nov 2006
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
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.
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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The Silent Acolyte
Shipmate
# 1158
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by HCH:
"The One-Minute Manager"
This is a postively appalling book measured on any axis.
Posts: 7462 | From: The New World | Registered: Aug 2001
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bib
Shipmate
# 13074
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Posted
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).
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"My Lord, my Life, my Way, my End, accept the praise I bring"
Posts: 1307 | From: Australia | Registered: Oct 2007
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Lord Jestocost
Shipmate
# 12909
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Posted
The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, by Emmanuel Goldstein.
Posts: 761 | From: The Instrumentality of Man | Registered: Aug 2007
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Huia
Shipmate
# 3473
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Hairy Biker:
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
First book that popped into my mind too ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Huia
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Charity gives food from the table, Justice gives a place at the table.
Posts: 10382 | From: Te Wai Pounamu | Registered: Oct 2002
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Galilit
Shipmate
# 16470
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Posted
Agree on The Dispossessed
Would add Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban
and The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
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She who does Her Son's will in all things can rely on me to do Hers.
Posts: 624 | From: a Galilee far, far away | Registered: Jun 2011
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
Kafka - The Trial
Proust - Remembrance of Things Past
Solzhenitsyn - The Gulag Archipelago
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Galilit:
Agree on The Dispossessed
But why? What lessons would you hope they learned?
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Erroneous Monk
Shipmate
# 10858
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Posted
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.
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And I shot a man in Tesco, just to watch him die.
Posts: 2950 | From: I cannot tell you, for you are not a friar | Registered: Jan 2006
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marzipan
Shipmate
# 9442
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Posted
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
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formerly cheesymarzipan.
Now containing 50% less cheese
Posts: 917 | From: nowhere in particular | Registered: May 2005
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George Spigot
Outcast
# 253
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Posted
@Gildas Why the bible? Wont they have enough problems to deal with as it is?
Posts: 1625 | From: Derbyshire - England | Registered: May 2001
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Higgs Bosun
Shipmate
# 16582
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Posted
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.
Posts: 313 | From: Near the Tidal Thames | Registered: Aug 2011
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pimple
Ship's Irruption
# 10635
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Posted
David Eagleman - INCOGNITO
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In other words, just because I made it all up, doesn't mean it isn't true (Reginald Hill)
Posts: 8018 | From: Wonderland | Registered: Nov 2005
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
I can't believe that nobody has mentioned Machiavelli's The Prince yet...
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
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
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
Posts: 3625 | From: South Coast of England | Registered: Sep 2009
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Caissa
Shipmate
# 16710
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Posted
The Communist Manifesto
Posts: 972 | From: Saint John, N.B. | Registered: Oct 2011
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HCH
Shipmate
# 14313
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Posted
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.)
Posts: 1540 | From: Illinois, USA | Registered: Nov 2008
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
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.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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Gwai
Shipmate
# 11076
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Posted
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.
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A master of men was the Goodly Fere,
A mate of the wind and sea.
If they think they ha’ slain our Goodly Fere
They are fools eternally.
Posts: 11914 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
No. 1 was my 1st. No. 3 I was only rhapsodizing over on Saturday and No. 2, yep.
And Brave New World.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
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?
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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HCH
Shipmate
# 14313
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Posted
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.
Posts: 1540 | From: Illinois, USA | Registered: Nov 2008
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agingjb
Shipmate
# 16555
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Posted
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.
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Refraction Villanelles
Posts: 464 | From: Southern England | Registered: Jul 2011
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
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.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Olaf
Shipmate
# 11804
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Animal Farm
Ditto.
Posts: 8953 | From: Ad Midwestem | Registered: Sep 2006
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Nicolemr
Shipmate
# 28
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Posted
Origin of Species by Darwin.
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On pilgrimage in the endless realms of Cyberia, currently traveling by ship. Now with live journal!
Posts: 11803 | From: New York City "The City Carries On" | Registered: May 2001
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
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.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Timothy the Obscure
Mostly Friendly
# 292
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Posted
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.
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When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.
- C. P. Snow
Posts: 6114 | From: PDX | Registered: May 2001
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
The Collected Essays, Articles and Reviews of George Orwell
Lampedusa's 'The Leopard'
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
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.
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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