this post was submitted on 25 Feb 2024
747 points (96.7% liked)

politics

18966 readers
6 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
  2. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  3. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  4. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive.
  5. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  6. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Not everyone has had the privilege of being raised by the landed gentry. Good day sir.

Ok I'll stop being an obnoxious dick now. First of all I just want to agree that I enjoyed the prose/flow of the Count of Monte Cristo. It was enjoyable to read but as a story I felt that it had some major issues and seemed to go on and on. Which I guess makes sense given it was serialized.

I think you're vastly overestimating how much the average person reads, and what sorts of books they read. In my experience, very few people have experience reading anything more challenging/obscure than something like 1984 or To Kill a Mockingbird, which we were forced to read in high school and hated.

I think a good amount of people (myself for example) eventually fall back in love with reading and realize those books are really good, but in my experience the majority of reading most people do is non-fiction. I've read The Count of Monte Cristo because I quite like fiction and because I became aware of the story in high school through the movie, but reading a 1200 page revenge novel written almost 200 years ago is so far outside the interest of basically anyone I know.

I'm sure more literary sorts of people have had different experiences but I think my experience is a decent indicator. I grew up with privilege and have nerdy interests, so interacting with people who had the time/interest/access to literature was not unusual.

Even as a big fantasy/sci-fi reader Jules Verne hardly seems to be a "must read" these days. Certainly a name that is known and mentioned but not at the top of people's recommendations. But I generally hate all the fantasy/sci-fi I see recommended so maybe it's time to read some Verne.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Not everyone has had the privilege of being raised by the landed gentry.

Not me either, just asocial, ha-ha.

I think you’re vastly overestimating how much the average person reads, and what sorts of books they read. In my experience, very few people have experience reading anything more challenging/obscure than something like 1984 or To Kill a Mockingbird, which we were forced to read in high school and hated.

School program and literature similar to it are what I've read the least. My approach was to look through it 30 minutes at home and 5 minutes before the lesson, listen what others say, and try to improvise when asked questions.

Even as a big fantasy/sci-fi reader Jules Verne hardly seems to be a “must read” these days. Certainly a name that is known and mentioned but not at the top of people’s recommendations. But I generally hate all the fantasy/sci-fi I see recommended so maybe it’s time to read some Verne.

Yes, recommendations and "must read" are not what I'm thinking. Rather nature, power of human mind and human courage, scientific progress of course. These books are very captivating for boys. Seeing them mentioned in some matching context may be sufficient.

I’ve read The Count of Monte Cristo because I quite like fiction and because I became aware of the story in high school through the movie, but reading a 1200 page revenge novel written almost 200 years ago is so far outside the interest of basically anyone I know.

Yes, it scares me to think that most good things I've read, especially in my childhood, I haven't found and chosen consciously. Some were given to me by my mother, some by my father, some accidentally stumbled upon on the Web or elsewhere, some I've read, yes, after seeing movies.