"Stalin, then, presents a challenge to anyone who claims a specific link between deep reading and the pursuit of ethical or social virtue." I think that only p

"Stalin, then, presents a challenge to anyone who claims a specific link between deep reading and the pursuit of ethical or social virtue." I think that only people who lived very sheltered lives would make such a claim. Somehow, I am reminded of this from "Apocalypse Now": "We went into a camp to inoculate the children. We left the camp after we had inoculated the children for polio, and this old man came running after us and he was crying ... We went back there and they had come and hacked off every inoculated arm. There they were in a pile ... a pile of little arms. And I remember I cried. I wept like some grandmother. I wanted to tear my teeth out. I didn't know what I wanted to do. ... And I thought my God, the genius of that. The genius. The will to do that. Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure. And then I realised they were stronger than we. These men who fought with their hearts, who had families, who had children, who were filled with love, but they had the strength to do that."