Books

1 readers

1 users here now

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

communick@metacritics.zone

What book, if a potential date has rated it 5 stars, would immediately make you swipe left? (alien.top)

submitted 11 months ago by newenglandredshirt@alien.top to c/books@metacritics.zone

37 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I'll go with the low-hanging fruit: Mein Kampf. I've read it, cover to cover. As a piece of propaganda, it's good. As an example of good writing? Absolutely not (though I will admit I have only read it in translation). Oh, and the whole fascist, racist, and generally shitty worldview of the author that he infuses into the text. And the fact that the author is literally Hitler. You 5-star that book? You're a Nazi. Period. And as a Jewish person, I don't look too kindly on them.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] notwoutmyanalprobe@alien.top 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

What you've quoted is only an instruction manual if you take it literally. And the world is far too complicated a place for everything to be taken literally. We still have agency over what we do with the information we take in.

I remember reading this book on a plane years ago and the person next to me had the same misgivings as you. You're reading about power? So that must mean you want more power? Why would you want more power? Who do you want power over? Etc.

It never occurred to this person that perhaps other people have had power over me, I got taken advantage of, and I wanted to understand how that happened. It's not paranoia to want to understand how humans are wired a little bit better.

[–] newbutnotreallynew@alien.top 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Ok, I know I won‘t get through to you since you‘re such a fan, but for anyone else who might end up reading this exchange I‘ll just go ahead and quote one of these laws. As an example of word choices. They can make up their own mind if the words in question literally sound like an instruction or not:

LEARN TO KEEP PEOPLE DEPENDENT ON YOU

To maintain your independence you must always be needed and wanted. The more you are relied on, the more freedom you have. Make people depend on you for their happiness and prosperity and you have nothing to fear. Never teach them enough so that they can do without you.

[–] notwoutmyanalprobe@alien.top 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

It's not what they literally sound like, it's whether you as the reader take them literally or not. The day you start thinking for yourself and stop relying on everything to be soon fed to you, you'll start seeing things like this book much differently.

[–] newbutnotreallynew@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

If you can‘t take the words as they are, the author failed to convey their meaning. All you are doing now is asserting that anyone with a different take on it than you is "not thinking for themselves", which is condescending. I‘m not interested in saying anything more to you.

[–] notwoutmyanalprobe@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago

You don't realize it yet, but we agree more than we don't. I said it's not an instruction manual, but it can be, if your intention is to have more power over other people. Decent people don't find a lot of inspiration in these laws. But they can still ring true, because the world is a very imperfect place and people with pathological personalities exist.

There's a reason Lord Acton said "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Power is a nasty business, and if you're not knowledgable about its machinations, you can fall victim to it. But power can mean many things, including the power to do good, or even to stop other people from having power over you.