It's worth pointing out that it's an article from a book reviewer, arguing based on a classical book about monks (who spend their life basically reading and copying books) that reading is really great all around.
There might be a kernel of truth in there, but there's a very clear lack of distance between the subject and the author, and the writing style exacerbates this point.
I feel it's the very definition of preaching to his choir, with little to no light coming from a different side with at least some ressemblance of neutrality towards the subject. Arguably reading people's rambly praises about their passion can be nice, but there's a weird grandiose tone here that hurts the enjoyment.
Neutrality would look like putting upfront that some people enjoy reading and others don't as much, and we should be ok with it.
He can then dig all he want about how reading is great to him and his peers.
This is not a post in a vacuum, he is answering a specific argument made elsewhere, yet dwelves in his bubble until basically the last few paragraphs to throw some plausible deniability in the end:
> If you’re Richard Hanania, no. You don’t possess a telos that would justify the effort. But if you see classics such as John Cassian’s Conferences as valuable, then most definitely yes.
Perhaps I'm just frustrated to have read the whole thing expecting something more.
I suppose you start a report about a football match with long disclaimers that not everybody likes football, not everybody can play football because of disabilities, and not everybody has the time to play football besides their three jobs to make ends meet, and that all of that is okay and nothing in the report should be construed as a debasement of people not playing football?
Lol that's not where I was going, but your take is way funnier.
What I was insinuating is that everyone has their priors, and not everyone is interested in starting every discussion by discarding them.
For example, if you ask me to discuss whether earth might be flat, I'll never start my reasoning from "well it might or might not so for starters let's say the probability is 50%"
Imagine I'd answer your comment with 4 pages about how some royal kings held purposefully long speeches in poor conditions with inane content just to have remote landlords come in at cost and test their loyalty, as it took days to come from their province to the king's palace, and it also paralyzed their decision process during that time as they were not there to ink deals, just to end it with "but yeah, some people might not enjoy royal history reports, though I'm posting it on HN so it's not actually a report either"
To reiterate, that piece wasn't his "what did I read last week" report, it was an answer to a ongoing discussion.
There might be a kernel of truth in there, but there's a very clear lack of distance between the subject and the author, and the writing style exacerbates this point.
I feel it's the very definition of preaching to his choir, with little to no light coming from a different side with at least some ressemblance of neutrality towards the subject. Arguably reading people's rambly praises about their passion can be nice, but there's a weird grandiose tone here that hurts the enjoyment.