Mohini

@PAHoyeck That’s funny!

If you read more than twenty books per year, you're just skimming. If you read fewer than twenty books per year, you hate reading. If you read exactly twenty books every year, then honestly, that seems a little performative.

@MajorsBruc34400 Why?

I kind of want to take everyone who uses the word "space" in the contemporary metaphorical sense of an area of activity, and have them shot into space.

@MajorsBruc34400 I skipped to your part!! 😊 Will watch it in its entirety this weekend

The American Dream Lecture Series: Education for Freedom youtube.com/live/AXtyktSE3… via @YouTube My question was at 1 hr 26 minutes

@JaycelAdkins Maybe the IF is anticipating a probable éventualité because the sages were wise and learned and understood human psychology very profoundly

@Indianlitwitch “IF”

“The reader should purify his hands and burn incense before reading it, and it should be read with the utmost reverence. If he becomes bored or tired, the reader should close the book and return it to its place on high so that it will not meet with disrespect.” S-tier reader

Some things change and some things stay the same! Great books are the common denominator, change or no change!

When I was at Harvard, the sociologist David Riesman took an interest in me and personally arranged my transfer to St. John's College in Santa Fe. At Harvard, I sat in large lecture halls listening to brilliant people talk. At St. John's, I sat around a table with fifteen students reading Euclid, Plato, and Dostoevsky, and we argued about what those texts actually meant. That experience rewired my brain. I learned that understanding doesn't come from being told the answer. It comes from wrestling with hard questions alongside other people who are also wrestling. The tutor at St. John's doesn't lecture. They ask questions. They let the silence sit. Their only role is to ask questions, not to lecture. It’s the practice I've spent my entire career bringing into schools and classrooms. I watched what happened to students, including myself, when the conversation was real and the texts were worthwhile, and I've been sharing this tradition with young people my entire life. Riesman saw something in a working-class kid and pointed me toward a tradition of learning that changed my life. I've been trying to pay that forward ever since.

@PAHoyeck Fuckalt?!

Philosophers whose English writing skills are absolutely appalling: • Immanuel Kant • G.W.F Hegel • Martin Heidegger • Jacques Derrida • Jacques Lacan Am I missing any?

@MajorsBruc34400 @grok That’s weirdly hilarious!

Prudery at @grok

@niespika @gchampeau It depends on the students! Some are completely bilingual or even multilingual by the end of their studies and some struggle! But even they are better off speaking at least two languages for a myriad reasons

@gchampeau La réalité c'est que ces enfants arriveront à la fin de leur scolarité en ne maîtrisant absolument pas le français! Ce n'est pas une chance, cela surtout à un coût social et économique très important

Mais vous vous rendez compte de la chance que c’est d’être bilingue en parlant une langue à la maison et une autre à l’extérieur ?

Finally finished it! What a story, what never ending drama, what craziness, what understanding of the human psychology and sociocultural shenanigans

@JaycelAdkins Online works perfectly for me!

I figure we are all going to have to figure out if it’s possible to build true intellectual communities online or if in person is the only way in the next 10 years or so.

@JaycelAdkins Very doable! Some sections read really very fast!

Western Canon/Great Books peeps: Thoughts of reading the Bible (as literature) in 80 weeks?

@JaycelAdkins Are you going to read all the volumes?

Text #3 that has been nominated by private reading group, after we finish the TAKE OF GENJI next month!

@JaycelAdkins On vol 4 as we speak!

Text #2 that has been nominated in private reading group, after we finish up THE TALE OF GENJI in May. JOURNEY TO THE WEST 4 VOLUMES Translated by Anthony Yu

@kannaroy @niespika @JaycelAdkins Once again, just because one thing is true, it does not make the other untrue! A sort of coexistence of truths!

To be honest, for right translation one should be proficient in both languages and culture of scripture and be a practicing of that tradition. India is especially unique in that sense because it's culture is 2000+ years old continuous one and a living tradition. Which is unique in the world itself. On top of it lead the culture in whole of Asia for a very long time. In one way or other many Asian cultures are linked to India. To get that depth on how India achieved it one should read from only authentic sources.

My private reading group (who has read Story of the Stone and Tale of Genji) is currently voting on what we will read next. Six Great Books were submitted, this is one of submissions. Excited to see what we will be reading once June is here!

@kannaroy @niespika @JaycelAdkins I believe you are missing my point or perhaps it is my fault that I have not been clear enough! Incidentally, both Genji and Story of the Stone are foundational to the said cultures just as much as Ramayana is to ours. it’s academic/high brow for foreign readers but not to them.

Hmmmm. It's a bit of Apples to Oranges comparison!!! The Tale of Genji and Story of the Stone is mostly academic study and high-brow art. Beowulf is also wholly different in the sense: The story is set entirely in Scandinavia (modern-day Denmark and Sweden), and the characters are Danes and Geats. However, the poem was written in Old English, the language of the Anglo-Saxons, who were Germanic tribes who migrated to England and was the last great roar of the culture that existed before the Normans arrived. It celebrates a Pagan warrior culture: blood feuds, gold-hoarding, and the belief that "fame is the only thing that lasts." It was recorded by a Christian poet (likely a monk) who tries to bridge the gap by framing the monsters as "descendants of Cain" and having characters thank a single "Almighty" God, even though the characters themselves are living in a world of Norse fate (Wyrd). It is considered "England's Epic" not because of where the story happens, but because it is the oldest surviving masterpiece written in the ancestor of the English language. Compared to the Ramayana, which is indigenous to the land where it is most popular, Beowulf is an exile's poem, a story about a lost home, written in a new land, under a new religion.

@kannaroy @niespika @JaycelAdkins A shout out to all translators and their efforts without which many of us would not have read Genji, Story of the Stone or Beowulf to name but a few classics

Your are missing the point. When such a cultural heritage literature is read don't people want to know what it's really talking about!?!? Translations from people who are not from that land or culture or even know to practice the culture over time, how can they even understand the text!!?? It's the readers loss. When someone spends time reading a book which reflects fundamental basis of over 1 billion people and 5000+ years civilization wouldn't they want to enjoy the real beauty of it!?!?