The Oxford Project | Week 2

Two Quotes On the Consequences of Believing Lies

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Thank you for all of your enthusiasm and support for last week’s post! If you’re new here and are curious about where to start, here is a quick link to Week 1 of The Oxford Project for a little background.

I am working on a post about The Name of the Rose and it’s a complicated and thorny one that requires more time than I’ve been able to give it this week. So I’m here today to share my reading progress and a few of the thoughts that bubbled up.

Current Progress

I’m trying to share weekly progress for two reasons:

1. For accountability to keep moving forward, even if it’s only 2 pages a day; and

2. To show you exactly how slowly I’m moving!

Honestly, there really have been days when I’ve only read two pages thanks to life’s obstacles. And I’m still counting those as successful days because I’m the boss and make up the rules. It’s all about making tiny progress over a long period of time.

Texts:

❒ A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders: page 90

✔️ The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco: finished

❒ The Trivium by Sister Miriam Joseph: page 90

❒ The Black Atlantic by Paul Gilroy: page 36

❒ An Introduction to Literature Criticism and Theory by Bennett & Royle: page 68

X Modern Criticism and Theory by David Lodge: abandoned

❒ Salt by Selina Thompson: not started

Notes From Readings:

I’ve taken quite a bit of notes, especially from The Black Atlantic. I’m finding that I’m most interested when the topic discussed intersects with race and class: my last learning plan trained me well. That plan helped me narrow down my two Big Life Questions, which are:

• How is that people with essentially the same upbringing and education can see a situation in two totally different ways?

• Why are so many people seemingly against their own self-interest?

My reading gave me a few thoughts to add to the kettle. The first was from George Saunders on page 60:

“The world is full of people with agendas, trying to persuade us to act on their behalf (spend on their behalf, fight and die on their behalf, oppress others on their behalf). But inside us is what Hemingway called a ‘built-in shock proof shit detector.’ How do we know something is shit? We watch the way the deep, honest part of our mind reacts to it.

And that part of the mind is the one that reading and writing refines into sharpness.”

A Swim in the Pond in the Rain, George Saunders, p 60.

And The Black Atlantic introduces us to Martin Delany, a prominent Black thinker in the early 19th Century. He wrote:

“The whites accept nothing but that which promotes their interests and happiness, socially politically and religiously. They would discard a religion, tear down a church, overthrow a government or desert a country which did not enhance their freedom.” The Black Atlantic, Paul Gilroy, p 29

These two quotes are related in interesting ways. Without the poo detector that Hemingway describes in the first quote, we have seen how quickly the rulers of a country can convince its citizens to believe that, for example, policies that favor the ultra-rich over the vast majority of people are “good” and “moral.” And then we see those citizens discard the core tenets of their religion to follow those leaders.

The examples are endless and fascinating. Understanding how leaders convince people to believe ideas that are blatantly false is one of my interests and is a popular strategy for authoritarian regimes. I have a few books on the topic that I hope to read over the next few months.

Further Reading:

• These Truths by Jill Lepore, especially Section 4: The Machine - read this fall/early winter and it’s fantastic. Rereading Section 4 feels important right now.

• The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt

• Chain of Ideas: The Origins of Our Authoritarian Age by Ibram X. Kendi

• Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism by Rachel Maddow

Next Steps:

I’m going to keep reading and seeking out interesting ideas to marry together. I hope to be back next week with a couple more to share with you, but until then: what did you think about the two quotes I shared with you? Do they seem true to you? Or off base? And can you recommend any books on history for me? I would love to add more titles to my ever-growing list!