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At the risk of being slightly off topic: people rarely discuss the fact that reading a book can have a negative impact on one's life. Books are just a materiali
by siavosh 14y ago
At the risk of being slightly off topic: people rarely discuss the fact that reading a book can have a negative impact on one's life. Books are just a materialization of ideas, and they can be good or bad. They can steer you down a promising path, or an equally unproductive one. And the problem with books is that they can be very persuasive, using rhetoric, 300+ pages can convince you of many things.
I've experienced this, and in the course of my own studies, certain books have taken me down paths that were not the optimal, and I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I hadn't read (and remembered) those books so well.
That said, I've become a much more critical thinker after these episodes. Sometimes it's taken years to unwind the effects, but I guess my point is, books/blog posts/people are in many ways just ideas, and influences on us. Arguing over whether we forget them or not is not the most important thing about them--what is, is developing the critical thought process to wonder if they are in fact worth remembering at all.
- kapilkaisare 14y agoI am intrigued. Would you be willing to mention the names of the books and the paths you believe they took you down?
- siavosh 14y agoSure. Probably most relevant in terms of this forum is a book 'Artificial Life' by Steven Levy. By itself, there's nothing wrong with this book. It's very interesting, and I would actually recommend this if anyone is interested in the subject matter. The catch is, I read this right before college. The summer before. And it had a profound impact on my course selection (and thus also the things I did not pick to pursue), it affected my internships, and research study all the way through the beginning of grad school. Looking back, I think I could have spent that effort/energy on a different path. Hence my general wariness to popular science books as they often can take mediocre ideas and spin them into romantic tales.
- vacri 14y agoAny book that can be considered a manifesto would fit this concept, from the Bible to Atlas Shrugged.