Much used, and little loved: The Rationalists

The Rationalists is an old textbook of mine from college. I took a lot of philosophy and political science in college, so much so that I could have double majored in poli sci if I wasn't convinced that it would have been a waste of time.  I won't call all of them wasted, but the philosophy credit hours would probably have been better spent somewhere else. I don't regret the poli sci classes though, that Thucydides class was great, even if the professor was wrong about the ending. This book was a much-recycled textbook. I count three different used stickers on my copy. Much used, and little loved, the fate of many a textbook.

Dear Reader, I did not finish The Rationalists. In truth, I barely gave it a start. I come to you now to confess my sins. I bounced right off of Descartes. That is a combination of the language and the subject matter. I have never read the work in its original language, and I never will, but the translator didn't punch up the language to make it more readable. "For to hold converse" is a phrase that exists, and I don't like it. I prefer a translation that preserved the text's meaning without using styles and structures that seem like gatekeeping. By that, I mean that the construction of the sentences makes it harder to understand what the author means, in a way that those who cannot parse it easily get frustrated and those that can feel superior. The responsibility of effective communication lies in the communicator, not the recipient. Too much of philosophy and political science is focused on communicating with their peers, and not being approachable to the general public. This lets ideas in more approachable formats spread better than other works. A good example of this is the works of Ayn Rand, which would not have been half as successful if not presented in a novel.

Enough about the language, now onto the subject matter. I did not find the ideas gripping. I will admit that I ventured none to deep, but I was unconvinced from the start of my revisitation. Descartes states early in the book that his approach to truth was to sit in a room alone and think his way through the issue. To trust that Descartes got anywhere near the actual truth is to have a great deal of trust in Descartes. But my points of view are so different than his that the base he builds his conclusions on does not seem like a solid stone foundation but rather sand. With that, every one of his conclusions is shaky. 

What is more, I recently bought a bunch of books. With a nice, new book sitting so tantalizingly close, it is hard to force yourself to work through a book you already read before, and are sure you are not going to really enjoy reading again. So I am dropping The Rationalists and reading a book new and interesting to me that I didn't pick at random. That book is Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco. I am looking forward to it.

Drop zone confirmed: Inherited Risk by Jeffrey Meyers

 When I rolled this book up I made some comment about how this was taking me outside of my comfort zone, and boy was I right. Another mystery book, and definitely not one I would have bought for myself. Though whoever did buy it got this very shiny hardcover for 25% off. I have never been too interested in biography books, and especially not in biographies of movie stars. I am concerned that I was lent this book by a well-meaning relative (possibly my grandmother) and they never asked for it back. It probably went on a shelf years ago and I promptly forgot about it. Don't worry it is not a library book.

It is very shiny and silvery

What this book is is the first book in this project that I am dropping. Before I discuss why I am dropping it I want to justify dropping books in general. I drop a lot of books. Sometimes it is because I got bored and I was not actively engaged. Sometimes, such as in this case, it is because the experience is a bad one. When you read something for fun you are not swearing an oath to finish the book at any hazard. You are engaging with the book to have a good time. That is its purpose. If it is not serving that purpose get out as soon as you figure that out. Then pick up something different. There are so many options out there that it is better to move on rather than grinding your way through if it is not worth it. I have around 500 books on my shelves, with more waiting for shelves, and more ebooks on top of that. The written word is not rare, and by reading a lot of books, even if you don't finish them you get a lot of different perspectives. So drop books, especially when you don't like reading them.

I did not like reading Inherited Risk: Errol and Sean Flynn in Hollywood and Vietnam by Jeffrey Meyers, and the main reason is the subject matter. It is a biography of the actor Errol Flynn and his son Sean, which is already a red flag. And then in the three chapters I read it was clear to me that the focus of this work would be on the "glamorous" lifestyle of these two men that the author fawned over while the substantive events of their lives make them pretty bad people. A big problem with biography is its narrow focus. Unless you are intensely interested in the person there is not much to get out of single biography, and in this case, three chapters were enough to produce an intense dislike of two men who were most notable for how handsome and glamorous they were while being bad people. So I dropped it. I would be interested in a history of old stars of the silver screen, or a history of Vietnam war journalists that included a paragraph on these people, but a 324 page book? That is too much, especially when the author and I disagree so much on the value of glamorous people. 

This book is going in a box, but there are plenty of other books on my shelves. A d20 gets me shelf number 11, that has 23 books on it, so another d20 and a d4 gets me book number 18.

Look at my dice. One set was a gift, the other I bought myself, guess which is which.

Book number 18 is Makers of Modern Strategy: Military Thought from Machiavelli to Hitler edited by Edward Mead Earle. Machiavelli and Clausewitz and Marx oh my. A little heavier affair, both in weight and subject matter.

A nice little peak at shelf #11, and this interesting little book.