From every page of A Great Idea at the Time: The Rise, Fall, and Curious Afterlife of the Great Books, author Alex Beam whispers: put down the Aristotle and pick up the remote. Stop reading that Dostoevsky text and start responding 2 a txt. There is a Dog the Bounty Hunter to watch, internet porn to surf, Grand Theft Auto IV to play. Conform... Beam's snobbishness toward a movement spreading great books to mediocre minds strangely morphs into egalitarianism when he attacks the project's contention that some books truly are great. Who's to say Jane Austin over Danielle Steele, Aristotle over Deepak Chopra, Thomas Aquinas over Richard Dawkins?by Daniel J. Flynn, more @ http://tinyurl.com/mxmfup (ISI)
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Who is to say?
, author Alex Beam whispers: put down the Aristotle and pick up the remote. Stop reading that Dostoevsky text and start responding 2 a txt. There is a Dog the Bounty Hunter to watch, internet porn to surf, Grand Theft Auto IV to play. Conform... Beam's snobbishness toward a movement spreading great books to mediocre minds strangely morphs into egalitarianism when he attacks the project's contention that some books truly are great. Who's to say Jane Austin over Danielle Steele, Aristotle over Deepak Chopra, Thomas Aquinas over Richard Dawkins?
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Argumentum ad Hominem
The subtitle should have read, Every Negative Fact and Innuendo I Could Dredge Up
Although he was not particularly unkind to me in the book, I found virtually every page to be a smart-alecky and snide diatribe of the worst order against the Great Books, Adler, Hutchins, et al. Plus the book is replete with errors of commission and omission.
As an effective antidote, I prescribe Robert Hutchins' pithy essay, The Great Conversation.
If the Great Books crusade is as bleak as Beam purports, then happily, not many will read his invective book.
Max Weismann,
President and co-founder with Mortimer Adler, Center for the Study of The Great Ideas
Chairman, The Great Books Academy (3,000+ students)
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