How do you read?

Question

Lately I've been re-thinking the way I read. I've seen in myself and others the tendency of really "liking" pieces, but when pressed as to why it often is because it reinforces something they already believe. I'm wondering if people have run into something in the recent past that really brought them a new idea of, or perhaps changed their thinking in a fundamental, if even in a very small, way. How did it do this? I'm not sure that I've really had an "a-ha!" moment, or if I have made it into that after the fact.

Comments

I guess what I mean is, do you think there is a method for drawing out novel anarchist ideas from a text that goes beyond saying "Look, this is an example of the kind of anarchy I already like"?

Answer 1

i like to think (ha) that there's a critical eye that comes with being an anarchist. a skepticism about at least a category of assumptions (human nature, "natural order", rights, a variety of things...). of course there are plenty of non-anarchists who have that eye, and plenty of anarchists who don't, but...

this definitely speaks to why i like science fiction. there's something about being taken for a ride in someone else's imagination that sometimes allows me to think about what i already think in a different way, which doesn't mean i can be articulate about it, unfortunately. i just mentioned ada palmer's book yesterday, but her terra ignota trilogy is definitely thought provoking, as she's thinking about distant future societies in a way that includes many, arguably mutually exclusive, social formations, through the eyes of various unreliable narrators, which i always think has an anarchist edge (unreliable narrators, i mean).