Boredom is under-rated: reading primary sources vs. researching historical context.

we live in an era when the culture of
reading now more than ever is based on guilt if you're reading a great book an important book the work of philosophy a work of history or something and you find it boring culturally were conditioned to refuse to acknowledge and suppress that sense of boredom if if you find this book boring what does that say about you doesn't that mean that you are the sort of person who can't appreciate Aristotle who can't appreciate why this great book is so great so you ought to feel ashamed of yourself and the motivation for reading books on paper in the first place may indeed be no more and no less than guilt of a similar sort that you would feel guilty you would feel ashamed of yourself if you haven't read Shakespeare and then for that reason maybe you didn't really question what your motivations were for reading Shakespeare what it was you hoped to get out of it and then what it is you're disappointed with if you feel boredom so the the most fundamental suggestion I have in this video is to take your own boredom seriously to examine your own boredom to analyze your own boredom if you'll want you could say even have sympathy for yourself to have sympathy for the reader whether it's you or someone else for why it is they find this boring and then to use that sense of boredom as a guide to find out what the problem is in many cases the problem will be that you weren't honest with yourself about what your motivations were for reading the book in the first place but in some cases the problem will be that you don't have enough historical knowledge enough knowledge of the surrounding cultural context to make reading that book interesting so let's say one example would be the Christian Bible what is interesting about the Christian Bible now let's just say hypothetically for you watching this video for the particular person watching this video let's say what you're really interested in is the history of slavery and the excuses that have been made for slavery by Europeans within the last 500 years or even last 1,000 years let's say okay so that's interesting for you so then for you maybe it's really rewarding to read the Bible and to do kind of comparison of select passages with some other book or some other source you have that explains how these passages were kind of cynically interpreted or deployed in history how you know some of the popes of the Catholic Church were pro-slavery and some of the more anti-slavery it's not the case that we're making an objective judgment that the Bible is worth reading or that it's interesting or that it's rewarding or that it's important in isolation this isn't intrinsic to the Bible this is something extrinsic to the Bible in most of these cases your reasons for reading an important book of philosophy history or nonfiction of any kind will be in this sense extrinsic but you may not be clearly aware of of why it is of what it is that you're looking for and maybe what it is you're disappointed with if you don't find it there so this person let's say a person the audience who decides to read the Bible because of an interest in slavery if they just sit down and begin reading the Bible from beginning to end they will be bored right that boredom and that boredom is something you should take seriously now again and the point isn't that they shouldn't read the Bible at all but if that's their research interest if that's their motivation then in a sense they're reading the Bible the wrong way by trying to read it from beginning to end they're gonna be reading an enormous amount of wildly irrelevant mythological crap just incoherent discussions of topics that don't understand anyway they probably need to sit down with a list of specific passages and some secondary source and probably some more kind of analytical and critical works but the history of slavery in Judaism and Christianity and and Western Europe and how those things relate to the Bible so that that reading will be rewarding for them so this will be this will be meaningful research now a few months ago it's not that many months ago my girlfriend Melissa decided that she would finally read the Bible and I think her assumption was she'd start reading it beginning dan you know because she was someone who was raised with the kind of very cynical and dishonest Christian education frankly like most American Protestants where she really had no familiarity with the Bible as a whole she didn't know what the text was about even kind of section by section if you break down the Old Testament into its major portions you know she had no sense of what biblical literature was where it fit into world history culture and so on what it said um oh it didn't say she had only been given you know these select reading passages presented carefully by a pastor I guess by a church leader you know it's kind of this intentional misrepresentation of and cherry-picking in the Bible so in contrast to that cherry-picking she was interested in reading sectional so look these two examples are counterpose right because the first person who's reading about slavery what I'm recommending positively is a sort of cherry-picking is just selecting the parts that interest them and in Melissa's case it's sort of the opposite like oh well she had an interest in counteracting sort of propaganda intentionally flattery of misleading introduction to the Bible she had by really reading the text as a whole now it is needless to say that she immediately got very discouraged very de motivated Melissa found reading the Bible boring and I put in a lot of work I was talking to her about the history of the text where it comes from why the Bible is the way it is starting with the Old Testament here a lot of stuff I picked up over the years either by the way from a completely atheist perspective but I mean I was explained to a why this is important historical evidence shall we say you know I'm not I'm not I'm in no way religiously Christian or Jewish but still I can recognize what's what's important about this almost in an archaeological sense for you know digging up the development of civilization in that part of the world and of course it had knock-on effects for the whole world because Christianity went on to conquer so much the world as did Islam so and so forth but what you have to examine that is why do I find this boring what motivated me to read this in the first place quite likely you were motivated by a misconception about a false set of assumptions about that text and what you'd find there what will be meaningful about it right and then I think you have to examine is there something else you need to know that could make this research meaningful and relevant to you or maybe not at all maybe you just drop it maybe you just give up on reading the Bible and I'll be honest you I don't know if Melissa could focus and sharpen damn sharpen her her reasons like become more precise and incisive what was it she wanted to know out of the Bible it obviously wasn't what she found in reading kind of the book of Genesis and it wasn't what I was telling her I was saying well look here's what's interesting about this what's it was interesting about this for example is that the Old Testament is full of evidence of the pre monotheistic religion you know back when this was a polytheist it's full of evidence of how Judaism as we know it today emerged from a totally different religion normally referred to as first temple Judaism that the incoherence and repetition of the Old Testament is itself evidence of how that text was revised and redacted and even kind of censored by these later generations that wanted to make this into a monotheistic religion whereas it really was not a monotheistic religion in the in the more ancient period that you have this you know the contestation of what the future of Judaism should be is preserved forever in the past of what Judaism was in the very incoherent the Old Testament so that's a little bit interesting if that's what you want to know but obviously that was not with you that was not what she was expecting to see at all when she opened the Bible I think she needs to re-examine what she was she was expecting or what it was she wants to know what does she still wants to know now right so he had a question from the audience Araya on discord was asking when reading philosophy should she as soon as a she should she read the primary source kind of first and foremost in isolation or is it better to study the intellectual context that the book is at response to her wording is it better you know to understand she gives the example is it better to understand the French Revolution or is it better to read Karl Marx in isolation because I've talked a lot about how important the history of the French Revolution is for understanding what Karl Marx was doing in the Communist Manifesto in us in his philosophy economics and politics in general right now this will sound like a cop-out answer but I'm really being sincere when I say this right the answer has a lot to do with you with what motivates you with what interests you not with what makes Marx important kind of in isolation if you just Rea if I the writings of Karl Marx and say this is important again this is why we have to get away from the aesthetic of guilt like oh don't you feel guilty about yourself because you never read Karl Marx and it's this important book and you you ought to be the sort of person who reads it oh it's not a judgment on the kind of person you are in this sense well you need to examine is what are your expectations what is it your you're trying to find you assume you're gonna find in this book and then are you you know then once you start reading it quite likely you're going to be bored because you're not the book is neither asking the questions you wanted it to ask nor is it answering the questions you want it to answer so from my perspective I know nothing about this person I know nothing about Araya it is very likely that you will find the history of the French Revolution more rewarding and more interesting than reading Karl Marx in isolation it's likely right and then learning the history of the French Revolution provides the context within which reading Marx is rewarding and interesting as a response to that history of the French Revolution okay to me that makes sense but maybe your reasons for reading marks are completely different so for example maybe what interests you in karl marx is let's say you're someone who studied economics and university like you did intro to economics in high school and then history of macroeconomics and microeconomics university you're not the world's greatest expert or someone who is a fundamental education in economics maybe your interest is in reading karl marx as a response to in a critique of classical economics so it's different context for understanding Marx or appreciating Marx so then it wouldn't be the French Revolution that would make it interesting for you right it would be reading and maybe directly comparing you know the claims that Karl Marx makes about economics to classical economists who wrote before him and you could include maybe some of the critics of Karl Marx who were in his lifetime or immediately after him you'd see how he fits into that continuity the development of economic theory you know even something as simple as the theory of prices and this kind of thing you know how scarcity relates to prices how the value of labour relates to prices in this kind it's not an interesting it's not interesting to me but it might be what motivates you but I think many people would be open in Karl Marx and not not even thinking through what is it there what is it that's supposed to make this interesting for them so then they're baffled and discouraged by their own boredom but if you can really examine that boredom understand that boredom then you make meaningful progress one way or another and that progress may indeed involve or require that you work outside of the text you're studying to look at historical context cultural context or a competing philosophical context where like you need to understand this philosophy was written as a direct response to and criticism of some other philosophy with some other political tendency of what have you so Karl Marx is also an example that's embedded in my own romantic relationship with Melissa right I started making videos about Karl Marx and the Communist Manifesto because Melissa decided she was going to read the communist manifesto again possibly with some of these some of these ideas in Melissa's case she really noticed that here on YouTube a lot of people in virgin raishin have now gone all the way over to being communists or they've embraced forms of socialism that are so far to the left and Marxist this has become popular again in 2020 after a long period of disaffection with Marxism socialism and communism she sees this wave rising and she's interested in examining Marx as the kind of source text or locus clásica so that all of these assumptions are put onto Marx as being this great work that inspires and informs this political movement that's happening again now around her and of course she feels alienated from that melissa is not a Marxist melissa is not a communist Muslim socialist on the contrary the research and reading melissa has been doing in the last three years she has really seen what a disaster communism was in every way including of course China that in China it was this unbelievable disaster so she's sitting there saying like she she's really conversant with the ways in which in which Marxist economic theory doesn't work the ways in which socialism and communism don't work she said thinking well a lot of people in her generation including like white people from Detroit Michigan you know but people from the United States of America they're getting really excited Marx so what are those people getting excited about you may not find the answer to that question by just sitting down and reading this book beginning to end she started reading Marx and she got bored she stopped reading it and so that series of YouTube videos that was making talking about I was talking in quite some depth in detail about Karl Marx's Connor's manifesto des capital and so on that stop for me also right but what you have to do is examine that boredom and then understanding analytically the real basis of your own boredom is gonna guide you for how to move forward with your own reading and your own research one of the one of the responses from the audience in my discord where this discussion took place someone whose wrote back immediately to Araya dizzy careful how I pronounce his or her name said personally I think it would be better to do both at the same time to both read the primary source text and study the historical context because properly understand the context of workin to weeks months years etcetera um there is a ghost haunting this this issue and that is the question of whether or not you can get good secondary sources at all another person in discussion pointed out that for example when I talk about ancient Greece or when I talk about Buddhism I'm always emphasizing primary source primary source primary source either you're reading the primary source or nothing and that's that's true I mean that observation of me is true and that is because the secondary sources are so often propaganda what do I mean by propaganda I mean they are intentionally misleading I have a lot of conflicts with my friend Muhammad about this I feel he is not cynical enough about reading secondary sources about history and politics I think he very lightly takes on kind of flattering things that are being said about history and it's like no no dude you're not you're not really open-minded the possibility that this kind of flattery of what happened historically is covering over failure and disaster like the extent to which you can be encountering propaganda including by the way propaganda through omission just not mentioning things that were really approach on ports to understanding how horrible something was or how or why something failed what really happened so it's it's very easy to assume that the person in the audience has access to a secondary source that's going to tell them about the French Revolution and you know look the first revolution it's one of the most contentious the most laden with propaganda one of the most romanticized events in the history of the world including of course the propaganda of romanticization created by Karl Marx himself and all of the Marxist following after it there is a fascinating book I've only read the first few chapters of I'd like to read the whole book written by Napoleon's younger brother and it's completely dishonest it's a first-person perspective on that history including the French Revolution and Napoleon's rise to power and I've seen this fall from power later on the book um you know but it's written like by someone who's in can emotionally shatter the state at the end of that history someone who lived through it and he's writing with absolutely no honesty you know and of course in terms of omission it omits you know massacres already in the first couple chapters there things aren't reading and I'm like yeah you guys are leaving you guys are leaving out a lot of people who were shot dead in the street at this point you know like and where were you personally we're like the young Napoleon was there killing people in the street so you know this is this is the ultimate problem we're up against the primary sources can be incredibly misleading deceptive and dishonest the secondary sources can be incredibly misleading and dishonest still to this day what book could I possibly recommend for you on the history of Buddhism right seems like such a simple topic there must be tons of books guess what in English they're all garbage they're all propaganda they're all lying to you I mean like really really terrible yeah you know they're they're way more dishonest than histories of the Catholic Church that are written by Catholics Catholics now generally have the attitude that they have to face up to racism genocide slavery war like they have to face up to the darkness of the dark ages and have some kind of you know critical response to it buddhism has not evolved at this point okay let me tell you're gonna get 100% dishonest deceptive propaganda history of buddhism you could say something similar about islam you could see silver with the french revolution so the assumption that we're moving from primary sources secondary source you're moving from something dishonest to something honest is false the the secondary sources are often more dishonest and the secondary sources in providing you with context can only mislead you more than the primary source so the the-- thus i close the video with same thing i open the video with the one piece of solid advice i can give you on this kind of reading and research is to exhibit your own boredom so that you understand precisely what are the questions you to ask what are the questions you expect this text to answer and if those questions are neither being asked or answered in the specific text whether it be a book of philosophy politics or history where are you going to look to furnish yourself with that context whether those are questions of slavery questions of economics questions about religion questions about war questions about gender or something you want you what you're really interesting is the status of women in this period of history and that's not mentioned at all in the primary source the secondary source where can you go to to add that context so that you're reading it in that or where how can you add in the other side of the debate when the primary source is tacitly and are implicitly 1/2 of a debate and the other half is left up to your to your imagination being honest about what makes this interesting to you if you're if you're analytical about it is not going to lead to a more biased reading of history it's going to lead to you being aware of your own bias and then having a kind of incisive angle on the bias of the various authors that are collectively constructing that history before your eyes