Intellectual Crutches

The rift that exists between fiction lovers and non-fiction lovers is not a function of books. It is a function of the perceived status that the readers think they can acquire by reading certain types

I repent. I have written this essay without quoting any of my favorite authors. I want this essay to be my words strictly (and by this I don’t mean that no one has ever influenced me). Because, it appears to me for some time now that quoting – or “parroting” as a harsher word – a favorite author allows me to disguise poor thinking and poverty of words. 

I hate that I am becoming what I hate – I am now a Text-Quoter (Parrot).

Text-quoters — or their close cousin: fact-chuggers — are a different class of ‘thinkers’ (putting thinkers in scare quotes because it is a loose word to describe these sets of people). They are shallow. They are parrots. They load themselves with another person’s words and just vomit them right at you. Their answers to your questions and probings are what someone else has said on the matter which for me, sometimes, is fair game. Yes, I think it is good to use the words of a big name to drive home your point but only when necessary; only when the big name did a marvelous job of articulating an idea.

However, as I highlighted at the beginning, this is bad when it becomes a habit. The more you resort to someone else’s words, the less you are inclined and forced to find and use yours. It makes you lazy. And for me, this is a type of illness – akin to being transabled: why won’t you use your own legs when they work? Why are you borrowing someone else’s legs as an aid when yours work just fine?

I want to hear from you more than I want to hear from your favorite scholar. When I chose to converse with you, it was because I believed that you are a complete human being with your share of experiences in the world and that you have a unique perspective. As well as having great questions. Why then are you throwing that old man in my face? I appreciate that he is a major influence in your life. But I think an influence is at its best when it aids you to strike a unique perspective.

So, on becoming what I hate, I have resorted to flinging Aldous Huxley, Nicholas Nassim Taleb, Roger Scruton, Seneca, Marshall McLuhan, and others in the face of my readers. I feel like I have insulted you. I apologize. And again I admit that I am a fallible man. I have become a name-dropper, or as a random tweeter highlighted, a Booktuber.

Name-droppers are empty. Booktubers are intellectually vacuous. Fact-chuggers are bankrupt. And Text-quoters are wretched. But the worst, the bottom of the barrel, the ones that Hades himself despises, are the “Read A Book” crooners.

Read-A-Book crooners cannot present you with a summary of a book, nor can they present their positions strongly, or present a thought of their own. They simply rely on the perceived status of reading books to “win” a conversation. They think – and this is indicative of an entirely ignorant and deluded individual – that if you read the same book they read, you will arrive at the same conclusion as them. Idiots.

Because reading books is fashionable, everyone gets tempted to brandish theirs. Displaying their collection as some kind of peacock’s tail. Then we rank ourselves on the number or type of books we read rather than on the quality of our thoughts.

The rift that exists between fiction lovers and non-fiction lovers is not a function of books. It is a function of the perceived status that the readers think they can acquire by reading certain types of books. Again, the quest for status ruins everything. It is a slippery fight that you will always have to fight when you pick up a book that you think is good/great, and that you think all of mankind should read. But my hedge against that has been that I don’t recommend books to people, except the Bible, unless I know that they are curiously grappling with a specific question in their minds. Questions that are inspired by wonder rather than rote notions of efficiency. To me, the questions you ask are vastly more interesting than the answers that already exist.

This, then, brings me back to the notion of reinventing the wheel.

To many people, this is a waste of their time. Because, why work your way through questions that men before you have answered? Well, I will answer: because I love the thrill of asking questions no matter how boring the answers are. The questions came to me on their own, or by the inspiration of a muse. There is no reason why I should not pursue it with vigor. And I guess that Plato and his ilks ruined the fun by answering too many questions. But hey, screw Plato. Have fun. 

And, have a curious week.