Books are the best of things well used among the worst what is the right use they are for nothing but to inspire of the many pastimes that occupy us reading books is not one that ranks high in the list for many people we live in a culture that prefers the glow of the screen to black ink on paper and while part of the reason for this lies in the engrossing nature of modern technology. Another reason is the ignorance many have regarding the benefits of reading for books, especially the great ones, are not simply a form of entertainment they are the source of what the poet Matthew Arnold called the best that has been known and thought in the world and therefore are one of the greatest tools at our disposal to inspire us to live more fully for all who feel trapped in an endless repetition of drudgery reading the great books is an effective means of escape or as the author mark Edmondson wrote we all get socialized once by our parents and teachers ministers and priests reading great books is about getting a second chance it's not about being born again but about growing up a second time this time around as your educator and guide Virgil to yourself.
Who would read my book as my readers for it seemed to me that they would not be my readers but readers of their selves until recently reading the great books of history for self-improvement was the spirit which informed the humanities in universities across the West but today an increasing number of humanities professors have abandoned this spirit rather than reviving? The ideas of the great books and offering them to students as potentially better ways to live many professors engage in what Soren Kierkegaard called a tragic misuse of scholarship they teach their students to his store and criticize the great books and explain them away as irrelevant relics of the past the great books are interesting many modern professors believe only in so far as they serve as examples of the so-called backward social and political climate of the times in which they were produced we will not have a real humanistic education Road Edmondson until professors their students can give up the narcissistic illusion that through something called theory or criticism they can stand above Milton Shakespeare and Dante this critical historical stance is breeding what the philosopher James Edwards called normal nihilists that is students who are masters in critical thinking for its sake specialists and tearing down all ideas and claims to beauty truth and knowledge.
It is easy to be brilliant wrote Goethe when you don't believe in anything critical thinking is valuable when used to evaluate possible interpretations of events or phenomena before settling on any specific belief but critical thinking for its own sake can lead one down a dangerous path for if you only know how to destroy but not how to build up your convictions then you will be left with no standards ideals and values to judge your actions and guide you towards higher possibilities in such a situation life will become a nullity a meaningless void between two eternities of darkness lived in slavish devotion to pleasure or the single-minded pursuit of money or power or as Edmondson put it so long as the humanities continue to churn out highly critical Minds who believe in nothing that you're likely to get are more and more two-dimensional men and women. These will be people who live for easy pleasure who think of money first then second and third who hug the status quo they will be people so pleased with themselves when they're not in despair at the general pointlessness of their lives that they cannot imagine that humanity could do better, fortunately, we can engage in our study of the great works of history without subjecting ourselves to the corrupting influence of the modern University and if we decide to be one of the few to make reading great books a priority what we are likely to discover is that as we become more fixated on the wisdom contained in them. the pull of Technology and the white noise of the culture around us will lose its grip on our mind for as Edmonson explains people who have taught themselves how to live what to be what to do from reading great works will not be over susceptible to the culture industry's latest wares they'll be able to sample them or turn completely away they'll have better things on their minds you.