Pile 'o books

Originally posted by rwingett
Because I doubt that their methodology will be revealed to be 'wholly junk.' Since the sources you provide fall solely along ideological lines, it would seem to be an open question. The conservatives are predictably condemning the book, while the progressives predictably praise it - both exactly as you would expect. As I find conservatives less trustworthy ...[text shortened]... ords. So while you are correct that it is not a direct quote, it is an accurate summation.

This parochial manichaeism, this hatred of cosmopolitanism, is a peculiarly American disease of the intellect and of public discourse that speaks to the poverty of intellectual curiosity and rigour in your country. As I said, here at least you strike me as nothing so much as the opposite side of a worn and devalued coin as whodey. The attitude is more to be pitied than scorned.

You say you are interested in what the authors say, but by that you appear simply to mean that you are interested in their conclusions - a sort of base surface reading - and not at all in why they say it. You find a methodological approach to confirming your prejudices 'insufferably boring', because you eschew rigorous analysis in favour of 'excoriating polemics'. One wonders at what point in your 'long and patient research' you decided that the facts of every matter were sufficiently enumerated so that you could dispense wholly with that research, turning exclusively instead to hectoring diatribes, to navel-gazing and to becoming an embodiment of confirmation bias. When, in short, you gave up the ghost of learning and thinking and became a willing conduit for propaganda and literally nothing more.

The main hurdle to us becoming Facebook friends is not at all what you probably originally thought, but can probably now guess.

My rebuke on the quotation stands: it's bad form to state by means of direct quotation that I said something specific that I did not say. Summarise and gloss by all means, but one oughtn't to ascribe to someone words they simply did not say or write. But since you ascribe to the American Disease, are knee-deep in the culture wars and its associated decisionism, this will mean nothing to you.

An Anthology (Penguin) - Simone Weill (half way through)
Testaments Betrayed - Mialn Kundera (about to be started)
The London Perambulator - James Bone (ditto)
Peeps at Many Lands in Kashmir - Hon Mrs C G Bruce (read alound in bed, once a week, to my partner in a stentorian voice)

Originally posted by DrKF
This parochial manichaeism, this hatred of cosmopolitanism, is a peculiarly American disease of the intellect and of public discourse that speaks to the poverty of intellectual curiosity and rigour in your country. As I said, here at least you strike me as nothing so much as the opposite side of a worn and devalued coin as whodey. The attitude is more to be pit ...[text shortened]... -deep in the culture wars and its associated decisionism, this will mean nothing to you.

Bravo. If nothing else, at least your post is entertaining to read. I'll give you points for that.

Originally posted by Marcusr
An Anthology (Penguin) - Simone Weill (half way through)
Testaments Betrayed - Mialn Kundera (about to be started)
The London Perambulator - James Bone (ditto)
Peeps at Many Lands in Kashmir - Hon Mrs C G Bruce (read alound in bed, once a week, to my partner in a stentorian voice)

I like Kundera a lot. I've read three or four by him.

Originally posted by rwingett
Bravo. If nothing else, at least your post is entertaining to read. I'll give you points for that.

Cheers! Mainly composed in my head during a 1 hour rural bus trip. That and, you'll doubtless be pleased to learn, starting reading The Shock Doctrine.

Originally posted by DrKF
Cheers! Mainly composed in my head during a 1 hour rural bus trip. That and, you'll doubtless be pleased to learn, starting reading The Shock Doctrine.

Excellent book. I think you'll find the methodology is top notch. Or so I hear.

Originally posted by DrKF
This parochial manichaeism, this hatred of cosmopolitanism, is a peculiarly American disease of the intellect and of public discourse that speaks to the poverty of intellectual curiosity and rigour in your country.

A particularly virulent case, especially in the effort to shake the disease: Ezra Pound.

Still wrestling with: Mr Kierkegaard's Philosophical Crumbs. Can't wait for the Postscript ... God help me! Should I leap? -- But SK is a good gymnastics teacher -- all that leaping develops muscles surely recommended for quantum matter, surely?

Loving, in chunks: Calvino's Cosmicomics
Starting: Robert Walser: The Assistant (Die Gehuelfe)

Lucky finds at the German bookshop in Cape Town:
Mausoleum (Hans Magnus Enzensberger -- '37 ballads about progress'😉
Jakob von Gunten (Robert Walser)

Walser is like a more laidback, poverty-stricken Kafka. Joy and terror.

Originally posted by DrKF
Cheers! Mainly composed in my head during a 1 hour rural bus trip. That and, you'll doubtless be pleased to learn, starting reading The Shock Doctrine.

What's 'rural' in your world?

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
What's 'rural' in your world?

I was in Fife, which is just north of Edinburgh, over the firth, visiting a friend who recently had a baby. So, not as rural as it could have been (had I been in the highlands, say) but it was good to get out of the city.

On your current reading, I'll keep an eye out for Robert Walser in future - cheers.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
Still wrestling with: Mr Kierkegaard's Philosophical Crumbs. Can't wait for the Postscript ... God help me! Should I leap? -- But SK is a good gymnastics teacher -- all that leaping develops muscles surely recommended for quantum matter, surely?

Loving, in chunks: Calvino's Cosmicomics
Starting: Robert Walser: The As (Robert Walser)

Walser is like a more laidback, poverty-stricken Kafka. Joy and terror.

I'd like to know what you think of Mausoleum when you get to it.

Originally posted by rwingett
I'd like to know what you think of Mausoleum when you get to it.

I've read it in American English so I can say it's one of the most engaging poetic texts I've had the good fortune to read. It has a sort of collage technique that uses individual historical personalities as prisms refracting worlds of practice & discourse -- and offering, a course, a cogent critique of 'progress'! I'm not sure what the effect is going to be in German.

I am looking for a copy of Enzensberger's collage novel on Durutti. I have a pdf but my eyes can't take the strain ...

Originally posted by DrKF
John Gray Black Mass (reread)

I totally hated that book. I still cringe at the mention of John Gray but my masochist streak makes me read his columns regularly.

Originally posted by adam warlock
I totally hated that book. I still cringe at the mention of John Gray but my masochist streak makes me read his columns regularly.

He's one of my two favourite philosophers writing in English today! Always challenging, and his own intellectual journey is quite remarkable. I read his columns and await each new book with baited breath...

Originally posted by DrKF
Always challenging, and his own intellectual journey is quite remarkable.

Even though I cringe at almost everything he says I have to agree with this. He sure is challenging.

But he was very loose on the historical record on Black Mass. Basically I thought that on 90% of the book he was being trivially right (while being grandiloquent beyond belief) or he was presenting the most fragile positions of the opposite camp in order to make his positions look stronger than what they really are.

And his definition/concept of religion also seems to be very permissive (basically every form of organized thought) and highly convenient for the argument he's trying to make.

What is the other philosopher, by the way?