Read the Damn Book

Recently folks have complained about having to read badly written "great books." The general argument here is wrong on, at least, two fronts.  In the first instance, it elevates important books, like "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" to the category of great books. Great books are great books because they are both well written and important. Really they are. Even Hegel, who people like to find impenetrable isn't if your willing to do the work necessary to understand him, and, as by the way, I've never understood the bias against Kant as prose stylist.  In the second instance, it assumes that if you read accounts of a great or important book you get more than you need to know about the original argument.

The second problem is the more pernicious.  Take Burke's "Reflections on the Revolution in France," please. It's clear that Burke was aware of the book's problems; he thought that it was sprawling, undisciplined and difficult to read.  And it is sprawling, undisciplined and hard to read.  You can read all manner of explications of Burke's argument, given that it's supposed to be a foundational document of modern Conservatism. But none of these take the place of actually reading this badly written but important book.  It is not the case that reading Burke is "character building" but rather it is the case that if you read the book Burke's contempt for all of the diverse actors in the French Revolution become clear, as does his absolute abhorrence of folks getting above their station; to say nothing about his willful refusal to accept the political, social, and economic incoherence of old regime France. 

Some of the interpretations of Burke are going to make this argument; the question, however, is which ones and how to know if you got the right one. Reading  Burke takes a deal of time and deal of patience. If you persevere, you would be in the position of understanding the extent to which a foundational text of modern Conservatism relied on strawmen and manifold misrepresentations of reality.  Assuming, of course, you done some work on the multifarious actors and stages of the French Revolution, which is to say the key to understanding Burke is to first read about the French Revolution and then you could see how Burke misrepresented things to make his larger polemical points. In other words, dismissing important books because they are badly written is to reduce a book's importance to its author's argument instead of trying to figure out if argument has any basis in reality.  This is true for primary and secondary sources.  Understanding a text, issue, or event requires more than understanding arguments about a text, issue, or event: it requires understanding the text, issue, or event.

This is, of course, a lot of work. However, doing a lot of work in an attempt to understand complicated texts,  issues, or events is well worth the effort and claiming the opposite is evidence of laziness and willful stupidity.  Refusing to engage texts, issues, or events on this level, which is to say taking them seriously, is evidence of a general intellectual morbidity.

On the other hand, you could read a great thinker without knowing anything about anything and write stunningly stupid things. Like this:

The first thing I noticed was that a lot of Franklin’s folksy little gems were a bit on the obvious side, the sort of things anyone but an outright idiot would already know. For example, who needs to have explained to him that an innocent plowman is more worthy than a vicious prince? Who exactly would be unaware that to be proud of virtue is to poison oneself with the antidote? Who but a knucklehead would fail to appreciate that experience keeps a dear school, yet fools will learn in no other? And who needs to be told that vice puts on her mask precisely because she knows she’s ugly?

Take point the first, every Burkean idiot who argued that hereditary  monarchy is better than democratic republics needed to know this.  Take point the second, every Pharisee of whatever religion who disdained the Publican needs to know this. Take point the the third,consider the history bankruptcy in these United States of America. And so on. Franklin's points weren't silly and obvious when he wrote them. They might be silly and obvious now, if you ignore all the people who continue to do exactly what Franklin condemned, but they weren't in the late 18th century.

Consider as well that folks who want to claim that great books are badly written often don't understand that words' meanings change over time:

But a surprising number made no sense whatsoever. For example, why would anyone think that “hunger is the best pickle”?

Because Franklin's pickle wasn't a kosher dill; it was a relish and being hungry makes the least appetizing food taste better in the same way that a decent relish improves the taste of a hot dog.

On the other hand, you could make glib comments about the worthlessness of primary sources because the Idiots Guide is so much more pithy.  Let's call this the Dilemma of Franklin's Pickle: people too bone lazy to do the work necessary to understand the text, event, or issue under consideration will deprecate the work necessary to understand the text, event, or issue under consideration because they are bone lazy.