Show Library: Pseudointellectual Books That, in Fact, Suck

[peritonlogon]

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I also didn't like freakonomics. Thought most of what was being analyzed was really boring (black people steal baby names from white people. Not so bad if its a one liner, but when you devote a quarter of your book to the subject it becomes very boring) I also questioned a lot of conclusions they drew from their data, didn't seem very scientific.

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Must have been so boring that you got the whole chapter wrong. Might want to reread.

[rory]

i dont want to comment on the books, because i think that what is pseudointellectual to one person can be profound to another person. for example if someone knows a lot about computers there may be some computer science theory book that is pseudointellectual to the knowledgable person but profound to someone who didnt understand computers and their history and whatever. both are correct.

i want to focus on collections of books i see in peoples libraries that would cause me to make the snap judgement they are a pseudointellectual. i think i might be one too but thats okay. i like to make snap judgements of people because i am a jerk. also i dont like to waste my time so if i can determine someone is not going to make any sense ahead of time i can more quickly make the decision to tune them out and think about other things rather than try to make sense of the nonsense they are dribbling out of their mouth.

neitzche: i think most of the time disaffected teenagers uncover pretty much the totality of his philosophy as i understand it (which is through reading one line quotes that people have in their signatures on message boards). i tried to read a few of his books and they made me want to die. so now if i see someone with lots of neitzche books it makes me skeptical of them. reading neitzche should make you want to die because it is wordy and self-evident. if you need more than one dose you have to be spoon fed your opinions. or you need to turn on signatures on the teen angst message boards so you can get up to speed that way. or read the old newsgroup archives from 1994.

literature criticism books: i like to read a lot too and im not knocking anyone who has gone into english or literature or whatever for their studies at school. but i think there is a higher percentage of pseudointellectual people in english and literature fields than any other field. i think old english is probably the worst. when you talk you probably use words like comparative and thesis over and over and over again, like how hiv replicates.

kant: i think his name needs a vowel changed. if you have a book on kant on your shelf, you probably took a philosophy course in college. that is fine. if you have several you probably majored in philosophy. you have a higher probability of being a pseudointellectual pretentious douchebag if you have several books on kant on your shelf just like if you are a black person you are more likely to rob me. that is applying probability to real life you freakonomics lovers. you personally may not be a douchebag but you have a kant strike against you from the get go if your bookshelf is filled up with more than one of his books.

women's studies books: i don't really need to go on about these. if you have ever talked to a self proclaimed femnisty for five minutes you will understand. if you are one, i am sorry for you and the people around you in your life. also included are many books on racism or what have you. if your shelf is lined with these then most likely i am going to want to die talking to you. or i want you to die. probably both.

environmental books: guess what? nobody cares. everybody has known for years the environment is dying and nobody cares. nobody wants to hear about it. we just want to forget that life sucks and get drunk. we don't want to talk about how the rainforests and glaciers are disappearing. that's depressing. we want to talk about being a PUA and omgloling on the internet. we're all going to die before it is a problem anyway, so therefore its not our problem. big deal the animals are all going extinct. unless they taste good.

poker books and science books together: god help you. you probably post a lot in OOT and think you know everything and act like a jerk most of the time. you probably think there is no god too. that means you are going to hell.

ayn rand: if you have more than one and one of them does not include "capitalism the unknown ideal" then you need to have your information parceled out to you in a story format, like a child. you probably reason like a child too. just read essays not fairy tales please like an adult. also it's not cool to be contrary, and you are probably one of those contrary people in arguments. that is very boring and wastes everyones time.

books on mathematics which do not contain equations and no mathematics books in sight: math is math, i'm sorry but if you didn't learn how to do it somewhere reading a story about math isn't going to help. you can't explain in words how to do math, you have to learn how to do it. it doesnt help you any to know where pi comes from if you can't solve for it.

i am sure there are more but those are the ones that jump out at me now.

[Aloysius]

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Boris,

Guns, Germs, and Steel was a boring, poorly written book.

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GG&S is boring because it really drags on at parts, going into certain detail and explaining certain things far too frequently (e.x. grains). It also goes into needless depth on some things that don't require it.

It is, however, not "psuedointellectual".

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Yeah it's rare when I'm really interested in the subject matter, and it's a mass marketed book, that I can't finish it. Dude really could've used a smart editor imo.

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If you don't like Faulkner you can go straight to hell.

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-Al

[Aloysius]

Rory:

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literature criticism books: i like to read a lot too and im not knocking anyone who has gone into english or literature or whatever for their studies at school. but i think there is a higher percentage of pseudointellectual people in english and literature fields than any other field.

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As someone who has done some work in this field (e.g. I worked with Harold Bloom on a junior thesis paper) I wholeheartedly agree with you.

Those who are approaching literary criticism with a strong grounding in other disciplines (history / sociology / econ whatever) have a better chance of not being completely full of [censored].

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also it's not cool to be contrary, and you are probably one of those contrary people in arguments. that is very boring and wastes everyones time.

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This is the number one reason to hate Ayn Rand disciples, imo.

-Al

[peritonlogon]

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i really dislike poe. everyone raves about him, but i think it sucks. I feel the shaksphere good but not all the hype comment.

i loved everybook kerouac wrote. And i disliked most of hemmingways books.

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I sort of agree with you about Poe..but my god Shakespeare! there is a reason why almost everyone from every country in the west since the 1600s esteems him as the greatest literary figure of all time, more important that Homer, Sophocles, Euripides, Aeschylus, John, Virgil, Dante, Rabelais, Cervantes, Racine, Elliot, Gothe, Proust, Baudlaire, Twain, and the other giants I'm leaving out. Besides an incredible sense of verse, he was able to tap into his subconcious like no other writer.

And, Keroac should have used an editor.

[Jeff W]

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If you don't like Faulkner you can go straight to hell.

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-Al

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I really do want to know what I'm missing here.

I read half of The Sound and The Fury before I couldn't take any more.

Same goes for Joyce, though I read all of Portrait of the Artist.

[Blarg]

Not sure that post belonged in this thread, but I agree with you on Kant. He is a horror.

[Blarg]

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Rory:

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literature criticism books: i like to read a lot too and im not knocking anyone who has gone into english or literature or whatever for their studies at school. but i think there is a higher percentage of pseudointellectual people in english and literature fields than any other field.

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As someone who has done some work in this field (e.g. I worked with Harold Bloom on a junior thesis paper) I wholeheartedly agree with you.

Those who are approaching literary criticism with a strong grounding in other disciplines (history / sociology / econ whatever) have a better chance of not being completely full of [censored].

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also it's not cool to be contrary, and you are probably one of those contrary people in arguments. that is very boring and wastes everyones time.

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This is the number one reason to hate Ayn Rand disciples, imo.

-Al

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Off the top of my head, I'd put sociology, women's studies, and art criticism far ahead of English for pseudointellectual baloney -- and large parts of psychology too.

[Dids]

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Ok, I'll offer an odd entry: Harry Potter.

Here is why. Every adult who reads this crap has like a deep insecurity about being a moron and so they find the need to try and turn it into some kind of literature masterpiece and go on and on about all the great layers and levels and meanings and blah blah blah. Its a stupid childrens book. If you want to read it thats fine, but I don't want to hear you ranting about how a book about 12 year old wizards where 90% of the words are made up gibberish is a new classic.

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You're very badly missing the point of why people like these books and projecting a lot of stupid [censored] out there towards people who do enjoy them.

I don't think anybody thinks that it's an exceptionally well written book in terms of craft.

It has, however, created a very engaging and interesting world. They're a fantastically easy and quick read. It's bubble gum, but it's very good bubble gum. Nobody's holding this up as epic art.

[diebitter]

Blarg.

What's your thoughts on Freud?

I dunno about pseudointellectual, but he's clearly pseudoscientific - and that's the very best I can say about him.