3 ms·

That is quite a bold claim you make there! Since you seem to hold a strong conviction, could you please make more explicit what concretely one would not know /

That is quite a bold claim you make there! Since you seem to hold a strong conviction, could you please make more explicit what concretely one would not know / missinterprete regarding the Western culture, not knowing anything about those concepts you listed, but knowing the bible itself back and forth? And to what excent one would need to dive deep into those concepts? Or in other words: What fundamental concepts in Western culture will we understand if we take you on your word and spend time into understanding those concepts? Bullet points / pointers would be enough already!

vehemenz 2mo ago
My convictions are pretty hollow because I'm demonstrating the pointlessness--or arbitrariness, if you like--of gatekeeping the ranks of the "well-educated," as the author tries to do here.
- ejtaal3 2mo ago
  Well played sir, well played :)
- dev_dan_2 2mo ago
  Doh! Fell for it, I guess ;) Hmm, while I agree that this particular book selection could come of as rather heady, and the author is obviously not doing an exercise in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_English either - but just gauging from the post itself, I find it plausible enough that the auther indeed just loves those books. My red flags: Putting others or other works down, pretending everyone is on the same level of knowledge ("everybody would agree that...", "It's pretty easy to see that...") and in putting the focus onto ones own (percieved or real) abilities. I see nothing wrong in engaging in complex, deep works, but I think some sense of humility should be at least subtly present; If that is not the case over and over again, I either assume that at least some form of signaling is going on, or that the author is genuinely that much out of my leage enough to make it hard for me to connect (I meet people like this in real life, they were often also nice people too, but I could simply not keep up - which is fine, not every crowd is for me and I am not for every crowd...) On the bible itself: if we are strictly talking about the culture of the western world, I do not think it is controversial claim the bible has been and still is a fundamental element, for better or worse, and often also due to critics and their thoughts. Trying to make sense of the western culture without the bible could be compared to trying to make sense of chinese culture without the writings of Confucius - or a maritine biologist trying to explain the oceanic ecosystem, while working on the hypothesis that geothermic energy cannot interact with oceanic life at all. There will simply be wide, gaping spots in knowledge, and plenty of hacks needed to fix them somewhat.
ejtaal3 2mo ago
Whoosh ;)

vehemenz 2mo ago

My convictions are pretty hollow because I'm demonstrating the pointlessness--or arbitrariness, if you like--of gatekeeping the ranks of the "well-educated," as the author tries to do here.

ejtaal3 2mo ago
Well played sir, well played :)
dev_dan_2 2mo ago
Doh! Fell for it, I guess ;) Hmm, while I agree that this particular book selection could come of as rather heady, and the author is obviously not doing an exercise in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_English either - but just gauging from the post itself, I find it plausible enough that the auther indeed just loves those books. My red flags: Putting others or other works down, pretending everyone is on the same level of knowledge ("everybody would agree that...", "It's pretty easy to see that...") and in putting the focus onto ones own (percieved or real) abilities. I see nothing wrong in engaging in complex, deep works, but I think some sense of humility should be at least subtly present; If that is not the case over and over again, I either assume that at least some form of signaling is going on, or that the author is genuinely that much out of my leage enough to make it hard for me to connect (I meet people like this in real life, they were often also nice people too, but I could simply not keep up - which is fine, not every crowd is for me and I am not for every crowd...) On the bible itself: if we are strictly talking about the culture of the western world, I do not think it is controversial claim the bible has been and still is a fundamental element, for better or worse, and often also due to critics and their thoughts. Trying to make sense of the western culture without the bible could be compared to trying to make sense of chinese culture without the writings of Confucius - or a maritine biologist trying to explain the oceanic ecosystem, while working on the hypothesis that geothermic energy cannot interact with oceanic life at all. There will simply be wide, gaping spots in knowledge, and plenty of hacks needed to fix them somewhat.

ejtaal3 2mo ago

Whoosh ;)