Why Reading Can Be Dangerous
Reading, as beneficial as it can be, can be dangerous.
We expose ourselves to its danger every time we pick up a book. And every time we utter the phrase “author A says this…” to win an argument or, even more generally, to understand the world, we surrender to the evil of reading.
We learn by reading (among many other ways) but the knowledge we get from reading is usually not original. In some cases, that is okay, mostly for practical sake. Not everyone should spend a huge fraction of their lives to come up with their own laws of gravity. In other cases, it is not so okay. This is because, essentially, the unoriginality of the ideas we get from books can threaten our ability to independently think.
In philosophy, this danger can be very prominent. Many philosophy lovers are at the same time avid readers. It is not unusual then for someone in this circle to know the theories or worldviews of Philosopher A and B by heart and to freely quote them as answers to questions in discussions.
Yet authors have their own perceptions of the world. It follows that their ideas stand between us and the world. Philosopher A or B might have said X but do we think X? And is it really X? These foreign ideas blind us from seeing the world in itself, from developing our own ideas about the world itself, and from seeing our own place in the world.
Does This Mean We Should Stop Reading?
Unfortunately, we all know that not reading would pose a different danger.
We may have saved ourselves from adopting an unoriginal worldview but not reading may equally lead us to building inaccurate facts of the World (the real big world, with other beings in it), even if we may be right about the world–or, more specifically, bubble–in which only we live in.
3 Philosophically Recommended Ways to be A Better Reader
So, how do we deal with this? How do we stay independent despite the influx of foreign yet beneficial ideas from reading?
- Read Actively
As we read, we should think over the lines. Does the thing that the author wrote make real sense? Try to think of possible counterarguments to the claims made in the book. Also, do not hesitate to, in a way, take a break from reading. Put the book down and come up with answers to the questions that the book is answering. By actively engaging with the book, the alien barrier between us and the world is removed.
2. Read more, in variety.
The classic comparison: quantity versus quality. Reading more versus reading well. The former always loses to the latter. But reading more does have its own merits. The important key is: more what? More variety, which does often simply mean reading more quantity-wise. True, we might get increasingly confused and–instead of cultivating our own worldview–lose our own foundation altogether when we read many things from different people who think totally differently. But think of it another way. The diversity alone shows that it ultimately requires our autonomy to think what the “answer” (to any question, e.g., What is the meaning of life? What is justice?) should be. The answer could be an entirely new response that we independently create because none of the answers from the books satisfies us. Or the answer could be a synthesis–our own mix-and-match–of all the different answers. And, even if we believe that the answer is exactly the one given by Author X, we–this free, thinking agent–picked that amidst a vast sea of answers. Start reading more here.
3. Read with others.
Reading requires only a book and our mind – an individual activity. But it does not have to be; reading can be social. Similar to the previous point, independence in thought is the outcome after exposing ourselves to diversity. If we only have 1 book instead of 10 different books, we can still find diversity by engaging with other people who have read that 1 book. Book clubs are the best to achieve this!
The thought that reading can be dangerous is neither eye-opening nor ground-breaking, but it is often overlooked and underestimated. We temptingly cite books and readily place foreign, unexamined ideas between us and the truths, instead of directly facing the world. To build and maintain independent thinking, we should read actively, variously and socially.