I’m someone who used to read books, but now I mostly get my information in other ways. I find it bizarre that people say things like this (title of the post) to me online. I didn’t read the whole bible, but i can still have an opinion of it based on what I know about it. I can also have an opinion about the place I came from without having met all the people who live there or done all the things there is to do there (i could go on). If someone says a dumb, borderline sociopathic quote from a book they’ve based their questionable life philosophy on, I am allowed to form a prior opinion of that book as being one I don’t want to read and probably overall bad. Books don’t exist only in the pages, they live on in the minds of people who’ve read them. If those people use the ideas and words from the book in ways I find sus, I am going to think the book is sus. In this case, the book was Blood Meridian by Cormack McCarthy. I do not like this book, because every quote I have read from it and every plot summary and person I have known who has liked it indicates to me that it is book for edge lord teenagers. Those literal teenagers (and teens at heart) are, at this point, not probably going to change my opinion of the book to cause me to plunk down the time to read it. There’s too much built up at this point. That opinion may not be an opinion I have if I finish the book, but there’s no way for me to know that prior to forcing myself to read the book. I am well past the point of forcing myself to do something because it might make me a better person. If I see people doing a thing that seemingly causes them to be worse, I cannot rationally assume that thing is one of those bettering things. Moreover, I am allowed to state that prejudice and feel fully justified in doing so, and even that the opinion is legitimate and interesting. Arguably, my opinions of books I haven’t read are more interesting in some ways than the opinions of people who have read the book, because they are based on unique people and experiences I have known and had.
Your use of your time is not preferable to what I was planning to do with my time if up to this point you are directly causing my life to be unpleasant. haters get blocked, have a good day.
by workingtheories
9 Comments
You can have and express whatever opinion you want, but you are not entitled to have others respect that opinion. That’s up to them. Opinions are not equally valuable. An opinion based on knowledge and/or experience is more valuable than an opinion based on ignorance.
***Obviously*** you’re entitled to look for clues that you won’t like a book and decide not to read it, but your sense about a book you haven’t read is a completely different *category* of opinion than the opinion of someone who has actually read it and actually knows what’s in it.
So, like, sure, deciding you don’t want to read Blood Meridian is perfectly valid but I also care very little about your opinion of a book whose contents you are largely ignorant of.
That’s a lot of words to say that you don’t want to read Blood Meridian
Why would you try.
Blood Meridian is trash, confirmed
Your opinion on blood meridian is wrong, and if you read it, you would know it. However, it is valid not to want to read the book for any reason you choose.
>I didn’t read the whole bible, but i can still have an opinion of it based on what I know about it.
Then you’ll also have to live with the risk that you might be wrong about it.
And with the fact that reading only books you like or think are morally valuable makes you a less fully formed human being than you might otherwise be.
I might add that reading half of a book and deciding it sucks is probably sufficient, as it’s unlikely to suddenly become brilliant in the second half and make the first half retroactively not suck
Well, I didnt read your text but nevertheless I think you are talking shit.