However, despite all the praise and accolades, I still deeply loath Harry Potter, Rowling and the like. Why would I hate something so seemingly harmless and fun? Because the proliferation of adults reading Harry Potter books is making everybody over the age of 14 a whole lot dumber. That's right, there is an equal and opposite effect that these books have on adults. When a 7-year old reads a book written for the 8th grade-level, she is greatly improving her reading comprehension and English skills and is well on her way to the Ivy League. When a 25-year old college grad chooses to read this crap, he is steadily reducing his intelligence and brain capacity (much like excessive alcohol consumption or sniffing glue). Thus, one could argue that thanks to Ms. Rowling, the typical American's intelligence expands rapidly at a young age, peaks just before high school, and then enjoys a slow and steady decline for the next 65 years thanks to a combination of age, mild drug abuse and Fox News.
I know most of your think I'm full of shit and that I have absolutely no evidence. Both of these claims are completely true, but let me ask you this. If Lance Armstrong never got off his big wheels as a kid, would he have ever won the Tour de France 7 times? Come on people, take the training wheels off already!
Jeff Butt's Reading List for the Modern Intellectual:
- Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
- Warren Buffett's Letters to Berkshire Shareholders (available for free at http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/)
- The World is Flat by Tom Friedman
- The Intelligent Investor by Ben Graham
- Fargo Rock City by Chuck Klosterman
- Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
- Mein Kampf by Richard Cheney
I can't accept your stance that “Harry Potter” of all things is decay that eventually leads to brain cavities in the minds’ of adult Americans. Engaging in reading on ANY level is an astronomical step for most of American society and if you want to identify a larger black hole of intellect look no further than the latest episode of "Entourage" or "Big Bang Theory".
ReplyDeleteGranted I need to disclaim that I am a Harry Potter fan (you would have found me in the Theater 9 at Fairfax Town Center at 12:01AM last Wednesday) but I likewise enjoy books out of children’s genre - whether it be the last book I read "The Appeal" or picking up an old copy of "1984" - the fact remains we read to be entertained AND stimulated but not necessarily in equal amounts. Just as you can watch a movie like “Bio-Dome” for NOTHING but brain-rotting enjoyment you can also watch the Three Colors trilogy or something pushed out by PBS.
The fact you provide a list of books approved for the "Modern Intellectual" shows that you miss the very essence of why reading can be beneficial in how it broadens our perspective. When every last manager read the "Two-Minute Manager" it didn't take long for employees to catch on to when they were being micro-managed (ah nice one, I read about that in Chapter 12, boss). All you have done is made a list of very cautious titles that any business savvy individual would hope to know an elevator conversation about and probably could pick up in a MP3 audio format any airport kisosk.
To broadcast what you have collected on your bookshelf isn’t any more impressive than asking “What’s on your iPod” – fact remaining that no one else really cares or will reward your good taste.
I do believe one can fault Harry Potter for being TOO main stream like that rape of a beach book "The Davinci Code" swept through the Orange Line years back. Sadly enough, Harry Potter is a cultural phenomenon on par with the original Star Wars trilogy and the cultivation train is not going to stop because you find it annoying that everyone else is on board but you. Just don't be surprised if you find yourself in a business meeting or out with a golf foursome 10 years from now and someone references "Voldemort" or "Felix Felicis". Sometimes turning a blind eye on what we may think is stupid just leaves the world around us thinking we are the ignorant ones.
I see that you're gravitating towards my inclusion of "The World is Flat" to blatently discount my booklist as fair game for any business savvy individual (this is the reason I intentionally left off the Malcolm Gladwell collection). I would posit that none of the books on my list fall into the category of "Two Minute Manager", "Freakonomics", "Moneyball" or any of that vanilla crap. Even Friedman's books, which are very popular among the business savvy crowd, have important insights into economics and our changing world order.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I will concede that reading Harry Potter in combination with any other higher-level literature would be akin to watching Schindler's List then following it up with Bio Dome to keep you from blowing your brains out. Of course, if you only watch Pauly Shore or Beavis and Butthead, you are already brain dead.