Intellectual Self-Defence: Time For A Reading Sabbatical

To be brief:

The obsession with quantity and volume has to end. More is not always better. Quality matters most. But people in the 21st century are addicted to endless entertainment, distraction, empty and largely useless talk, and endless amounts of “news” and commentary. Unless we step back, pause, reflect, and do some serious reading, all of this endless flood of information is, quite simply, worse than useless – it is blinding, and it is a distraction. It is utterly counter-productive and simply self-defeating.

I would say that no one should be reading, watching or listening to “the news”, in any form, from any source, until they’ve at least read Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent, and Necessary Illusions. Without that course in intellectual self-defence, they are simply far too easily manipulated, lied to, propagandized and deceived. Turn off all media and all electronics until you’ve read these two books, at a minimum. I would also frankly add my own, Enlightened Democracy, The People vs The Elite, The Collapse Of The West, and Slavery Or Rebirth; along with Henry David Thoreau’s, Walden, and On Civil Disobedience; and Vandana Shiva’s, Oneness vs The 1%.

It’s time for a reading sabbatical. Turn off the media and all electronics – and read.

JTR,

February 6, 2024

Here is a case study in propaganda, aka, “journalism” and “the news”: