Thursday, March 25, 2010
Dreher's 10 books
Dreher opened a topic "List 10 books that changed your worldview." Caught my attention because I'd been thinking along those lines lately. (More precisely, I'd been listing things that opened my eyes to reality at various times, and most were books.)
My list, roughly in chronological order and expanded from my comment in Dreher:
1. Mario Pei, Story of Language. Around age 11. Taught me the true logic and the fascinating family tree of language, showed me that the English teacher didn't know what the hell she was talking about. Learned to mistrust experts, which comes in mighty handy down here, Bub.
2. Fletcher Pratt, Secret and Urgent. Around age 12. Learned basics of cryptography and by extension some basics of human nature. (As in why people need codes to run wars and businesses.)
3. George Gamow, 1-2-3 Infinity. Around age 12. Lively book on mathematics, intro'd many concepts of limits, calculus, etc. (Hadn't thought of this book in decades, but oddly enough dreamed about it last night, so it must belong on the list! In the dream, I was moving into a new house and found one room filled to overflowing with huge man-sized copies of this book. Strange, eh?)
4. Edward Wallant, Tenants of Moonbloom. Around age 14. Taught me about human endurance, love, death.
5. Huxley, Brave New World. Around 15. Perfect vision of modern America, caution about my pseudo-intellectual pretensions. Should have paid more attention to the latter.
6. Steinbeck, Cannery Row / Sweet Thursday. Around 16. Found a role model in Doc Ricketts, pretty much followed that role model for rest of life. Worked out well so far. (Found out later that the actual Ed Ricketts was significantly different from Doc character, but that didn't really matter....)
7. C. Northcote Parkinson, Parkinson's Law. Around 18. Taught me to think of human behavior in biological and mechanistic terms, ignoring the ideological and psychological crap that drives Americans to reach uniformly delusional answers.
8. Forrest Mims's electronics books. Around 27. Working a series of projects with the Mims books as guide, I learned enough about modern electronics to become a competent teacher. In other words, I got from Mims what I couldn't get from college.
9. Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon. Around 40. Not really a life-changer like the rest, but still important ... taught me how Wall Street Casino really works, just in time to remove temptation of throwing life savings down the Casino rathole. (If I hadn't picked up this information, I wouldn't have been able to carry out the Doc Ricketts "independently poor" life!)
10. WPA Writers Project. 50 to present. Learned what FDR was really doing, picked up the flavor of a time when American politicians, intellectuals and scientists wanted the American PEOPLE to succeed. Seen against this background, our current generation of treasonous genocidal truth-murdering servants of China show up with stark tragic clarity.
In short, Polistra was born from the WPA guides.
My list, roughly in chronological order and expanded from my comment in Dreher:
1. Mario Pei, Story of Language. Around age 11. Taught me the true logic and the fascinating family tree of language, showed me that the English teacher didn't know what the hell she was talking about. Learned to mistrust experts, which comes in mighty handy down here, Bub.
2. Fletcher Pratt, Secret and Urgent. Around age 12. Learned basics of cryptography and by extension some basics of human nature. (As in why people need codes to run wars and businesses.)
3. George Gamow, 1-2-3 Infinity. Around age 12. Lively book on mathematics, intro'd many concepts of limits, calculus, etc. (Hadn't thought of this book in decades, but oddly enough dreamed about it last night, so it must belong on the list! In the dream, I was moving into a new house and found one room filled to overflowing with huge man-sized copies of this book. Strange, eh?)
4. Edward Wallant, Tenants of Moonbloom. Around age 14. Taught me about human endurance, love, death.
5. Huxley, Brave New World. Around 15. Perfect vision of modern America, caution about my pseudo-intellectual pretensions. Should have paid more attention to the latter.
6. Steinbeck, Cannery Row / Sweet Thursday. Around 16. Found a role model in Doc Ricketts, pretty much followed that role model for rest of life. Worked out well so far. (Found out later that the actual Ed Ricketts was significantly different from Doc character, but that didn't really matter....)
7. C. Northcote Parkinson, Parkinson's Law. Around 18. Taught me to think of human behavior in biological and mechanistic terms, ignoring the ideological and psychological crap that drives Americans to reach uniformly delusional answers.
8. Forrest Mims's electronics books. Around 27. Working a series of projects with the Mims books as guide, I learned enough about modern electronics to become a competent teacher. In other words, I got from Mims what I couldn't get from college.
9. Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon. Around 40. Not really a life-changer like the rest, but still important ... taught me how Wall Street Casino really works, just in time to remove temptation of throwing life savings down the Casino rathole. (If I hadn't picked up this information, I wouldn't have been able to carry out the Doc Ricketts "independently poor" life!)
10. WPA Writers Project. 50 to present. Learned what FDR was really doing, picked up the flavor of a time when American politicians, intellectuals and scientists wanted the American PEOPLE to succeed. Seen against this background, our current generation of treasonous genocidal truth-murdering servants of China show up with stark tragic clarity.
In short, Polistra was born from the WPA guides.
Labels: Experiential education
¶ 7:39 PM
