[RD] Which 'Great Works' are low-hanging fruit?

[SS-18 ICBM]

I think it's overrated, not useless. The reason is in your post: "maxims". War isn't reducible to simple general rules. What works in one context may not in another.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I think it's overrated, not useless. The reason is in your post: "maxims". War isn't reducible to simple general rules. What works in one context may not in another.

War prior to the late 19th C could be taught through maxims. The physical constraints of armies and combat allowed it. If you spend some time studying the well known campaigns and battles from the last 3000 years, you will quickly identify many of the book's maxims as being important to understand.

 

[Camikaze]

I think the idea of this thread is pretty fun - that being high-brow or intellectual is a matter of performance, so we should just boil consumption of art down to return on investment.

Both of these are indeed short books, but I don't think that they're very "high-yield" because most people who read them misunderstand them to some extent.

I think this misses the point a little, because the yield isn't actually understanding anything, it's being able to signal. If I haven't actually read the Art of War, how can I perform my intellectual superiority by saying, "well actually, Art of War is total trash"? You're unlikely to get called out in that sort of situation, because it's highly unlikely anyone else you're talking at would have read and 'understood' it either. For me, War and Peace serves that role - I read it when I was a teenager and thought after the first few chapters it was an engaging story, but I very much doubt I actually understood much of it. But that doesn't matter, I can still use the fact that I've read it to 'prove' I'm cultured and smart. No-one's going to interrogate my understanding of it.

But it's not very 'high-yield', because although it's quite far along the 'social cachet'-axis, it's gotta be near the top of the 'effort'-axis. Compare Animal Farm, which doesn't go nearly the same distance on the 'social cachet'-axis, but is almost at 0 on the 'effort'-axis.

I guess the focus on actually consuming the ""Great Work"" isn't the hackiest way to do things, really. Surely you can most of the benefit with a far reduced effort by finding some good cliffnotes. I'm not entirely sure why a strategically-minded twenty-something looking to impress would actually need to go out and read War and Peace when there's probably a perfectly serviceable summary somewhere.

 

[Kyriakos]

I haven't read War and Peace, and i am past the age of reading massive novels
But i like a few short stories by Tolstoy. Primarily the Death of Ivan Ilyich.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

I guess the focus on actually consuming the ""Great Work"" isn't the hackiest way to do things, really. Surely you can most of the benefit with a far reduced effort by finding some good cliffnotes. I'm not entirely sure why a strategically-minded twenty-something looking to impress would actually need to go out and read War and Peace when there's probably a perfectly serviceable summary somewhere.

If feigning knowledge is the goal, I wouldn't read any "Great Work" and just read Wikipedia for half an hour every day.

 

[Mouthwash]

Is The 4-Hour Workweek any good? There are lots of good and bad reviews of it. Anyone have a less controversial suggestion?

Well, your first defense was defending yourself from my defense of you, and if you don't know why it was a defense rather than an attack go read The Prince and the Art of War because those books will help guide you to being able to figure it out sometime.

'Hygro is a necrophiliac and crack addict.' 'We all have our vices.'

You'd probably not interpret the latter as a defense, given that the former sentence is 100% false.

Low hanging fruit means low effort high reward. If you want low effort high reward, you can recognize indicators by those providing low hanging fruit recommendations, i.e., not recommendations the poster classifies as low hanging fruit but the recommendations themselves that are a) low hanging fruit and b) provided by people who are motivated by low hanging fruit and turned away by needing a ladder. So when Hehe provides 2 paragraphs for why those are good books, starting with "They are really short", and lazy-ass Hygro goes "seconded" the guy who picked the lowest hanging fruit way of giving you the recommendation is itself evidence that that's the fruit you're looking for. That, until now for reasons that I guess I'm triggered and love an excuse to even care to go meta, I kept responding with the lowest hanging fruit of effective replies is continued evidence that my recommendation is likely valid for your lazy ass.

But this whole issue is about Zkribbler's post. Not yours. I'm okay with people just endorsing other people's books, as long as some reasons are given in the original post.

Did you even bother to read the post where I recommended three books to you?

I don't comment on every single post. As for your suggestions, I'm already reading the Bible, Kapital is a famously difficult book to read, and your reasons for reading Mein Kampf aren't very convincing (most of the conservatives I've met, Christian Zionists especially, are wonderful people).

I think the idea of this thread is pretty fun - that being high-brow or intellectual is a matter of performance, so we should just boil consumption of art down to return on investment.

I think this misses the point a little, because the yield isn't actually understanding anything, it's being able to signal. If I haven't actually read the Art of War, how can I perform my intellectual superiority by saying, "well actually, Art of War is total trash"? You're unlikely to get called out in that sort of situation, because it's highly unlikely anyone else you're talking at would have read and 'understood' it either. For me, War and Peace serves that role - I read it when I was a teenager and thought after the first few chapters it was an engaging story, but I very much doubt I actually understood much of it. But that doesn't matter, I can still use the fact that I've read it to 'prove' I'm cultured and smart. No-one's going to interrogate my understanding of it.

But it's not very 'high-yield', because although it's quite far along the 'social cachet'-axis, it's gotta be near the top of the 'effort'-axis. Compare Animal Farm, which doesn't go nearly the same distance on the 'social cachet'-axis, but is almost at 0 on the 'effort'-axis.

I guess the focus on actually consuming the ""Great Work"" isn't the hackiest way to do things, really. Surely you can most of the benefit with a far reduced effort by finding some good cliffnotes. I'm not entirely sure why a strategically-minded twenty-something looking to impress would actually need to go out and read War and Peace when there's probably a perfectly serviceable summary somewhere.

When did I say this was about signaling purposes! This is like making a bunch of small investments rather than one big one. Or casting a wide net. Whatever analogy you want. Engaging in rigorous study of a subject or being able to pretend you know about it aren't the only two options.

 

[Hygro]

We practitioners of the dark magicks prefer the term necromancer thank you very much.

 

[Takhisis]

I don't comment on every single post.

Well, if you ask for advice and then don't answer then it seems as though you were ignoring it.

As for your suggestions, I'm already reading the Bible,

Good!

Kapital is a famously difficult book to read,

It is! but, since you want to have ‘learned person™’ credit then Kapital also helps in that regard.

and your reasons for reading Mein Kampf aren't very convincing (most of the conservatives I've met, Christian Zionists especially, are wonderful people).

But think of those conservatives who are their allies, e.g. the ‘Jews will not replace us’ crowd in the U.S., Orbán Viktor in Hungary, the now deceased Haider in Africa, the Front Nationale in France, the National Front in England, and also the anti-Hispanic sentiment in the US (and many others) are really echoes of the ideals espoused by Hitler, which were really just a compilation of ideals already espoused and elaborated on by 19th century thinkers.

btw it is the least important of the three, by far.

 

[Farm Boy]

I think one should speak for one's self when it comes to who thier allies are.

 

[Zkribbler]

Folks, remember the criteria:

"frequently come up, are impressive to have read, are relatively short, at least a little readable/fun-to-read, teach you important things."

I look at some of these recommended readings, and I want to kill myself.

 

[Zkribbler]

I would prefer a little more detail than that. Specifically, what important things are in them.

1984 -- The main character works for a totalitarian government, writing fake news and erasing any trace of the history that contradicts it. 1984 introduces concepts like "double think," i.e. believing in facts you know to be false.

George Orwell's Animal Farm is an allegorical fairy tale about the Russian Revolution. Farm animals rebel and set up a utopia only have it devolve into a dictatorship. My favorite scenes: When the pigs teach the sheep to bleat the anti-human slogan "Four legs good; two legs bad," but later, when pigs want to walk about on their hind trotters, they change it to: "Four legs good; two legs better." Similarly, the iron law "All animals are equal" is modified to: "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others."

As for your suggestions, I'm already reading the Bible...

Nobody reads the Bible! If you feel you must, get the Cliff Notes.

 

[Mouthwash]

Nobody reads the Bible! If you feel you must, get the Cliff Notes.

I find it pretty enjoyable with commentary. Also love the 'wisdom books' like Ecclesiastes and Job.

 

[sophie]

Nobody reads the Bible! If you feel you must, get the Cliff Notes.

The whole thing? No, the tome is a slog to get through, but at the bare minimum I would expect an educated Christian to have read Genesis, Exodus, parts of Joshua, Samuel, and Kings; Job, parts of Psalms, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes; the Song of Songs; all of: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; Paul's letters, particularly Romans, 1st and 2nd Corinthians, and Revelation; in addition to probably Augustine's Confessions and parts of The City of God. Maybe other works like parts of Thomas Aquinas's corpus, maybe parts of Erasmus's Enchiridion of the Christian Soldier, some of Luther's/Calvin's/Melanchthon's core works if they're Protestant.

MW: don't bother with the whole of Dante's trilogy. If we're just focusing on maximizing cultural/tropic consumption, you really only need to read Inferno. Purgatorio and Paradiso are nice, but they aren't really widely-referenced unless you're running in really academic circles of Medieval Lit specialists.

More recommendations: Candide, seriously. It's short, it's a super quick read, and Voltaire is one of the 5 or 6 most influential western writers of the modern era. Again I'll repeat my recommendation of Augustine's Confessions. The core Medieval fiction texts: The Song of Roland, The Canterbury Tales, Das Niebelunglied (especially if you're into Tolkien - this is a good one), Tristan and Isolde, and Don Quixote (a tome, but one worth reading, imo). I will once again reiterate that reading the core texts of Dickens's, Austen's, and Shakespeare's respective corpora are going to give you the most bang-for-your-buck in the English speaking world.

100 Years of Solitude is also a really good one to read. And again, I'll reiterate: Goethe's Faust and Mann's Der Zauberberg (The Magic Mountain). If we're purely going with culture signalling for academic crowds, Madame Bovary, or much of anything by Flaubert would be worth checking out. Academics in the Humanities disciplines friggen adore Flaubert, and rightly so. And again, if we're going purely for demonstrating erudition among academics, I don't really think that's at all possible without at least superficially familiarizing yourself with the works of Foucault. At the very least, Discipline and Punish is a must-read.

In the end, though, if this is purely a matter of maximizing cultural erudition in the least amount of time, I'd say consuming core cinematic and operatic texts would be the most efficient way of doing so. You can watch 10 great French New Wave, Silent, or Japanese/Italian/Indian films in the time it takes to you read one of these books people are recommending, and you'll appear just as sophisticated in doing so.

 

[Birdjaguar]

"The Way of Zen" by Alan Watts

Spoiler :

Short version:
Chapter 1: In the landscape of nature, the flowering branches naturally, some long some short.

Chapter 2: The thief left it behind, the moon at the window.

 

[Lexicus]

The whole thing? No, the tome is a slog to get through, but at the bare minimum I would expect an educated Christian to have read Genesis, Exodus, parts of Joshua, Samuel, and Kings; Job, parts of Psalms, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes; the Song of Songs; all of: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; Paul's letters, particularly Romans, 1st and 2nd Corinthians, and Revelation; in addition to probably Augustine's Confessions and parts of The City of God. Maybe other works like parts of Thomas Aquinas's corpus, maybe parts of Erasmus's Enchiridion of the Christian Soldier, some of Luther's/Calvin's/Melanchthon's core works if they're Protestant.

I doubt that one tenth of one percent of Christians currently alive today have read all of this "bare minimum" stuff.

 

[Hygro]

I just re read the first 20 pages of genesis the other day and I feel like I read something no one read before. Christians need to take their bible more literally imo

 

[sophie]

I doubt that one tenth of one percent of Christians currently alive today have read all of this "bare minimum" stuff.

I said an educated Christian, but I'd feel pretty confident in saying that a Christian who goes to church once a week and actually listens to the whole sermon is probably quite familiar with the content of those books from listening.

But yes, I also think American Christianity as a whole could benefit from sitting down and reading Paul with a more critical eye.

 

[Lexicus]

I said an educated Christian, but I'd feel pretty confident in saying that a Christian who goes to church once a week and actually listens to the whole sermon is probably quite familiar with the content of those books from listening.

*shrugs* well I have no idea what sermons in any church are like as I've only ever attended Jewish religious services.

 

[CKS]

I'd feel pretty confident in saying that a Christian who goes to church once a week and actually listens to the whole sermon is probably quite familiar with the content of those books from listening.

My grandfather was a preacher, and I'm very confident that anyone who listened to his whole sermon each week (without reading any of those texts) would be totally unfamiliar with all of them. They might think they knew something about what was in the bible, but they'd be wrong, and they'd never have heard of any of the ideas of other religious scholars. There are many thoughtful preachers, but there are an awful lot who aren't.

 

[Hygro]

My grandfather was a preacher, and I'm very confident that anyone who listened to his whole sermon each week (without reading any of those texts) would be totally unfamiliar with all of them. They might think they knew something about what was in the bible, but they'd be wrong, and they'd never have heard of any of the ideas of other religious scholars. There are many thoughtful preachers, but there are an awful lot who aren't.

I feel like this logic applies to a lot of things and its the painful job of people to spread why it matters good luck.