Recently I’ve started reading some classic books on my own. We are investigating the Thomas Jefferson Education, and one of the starting steps is to read classics on our own, before we start trying to change anything with our children’s education.
To my surprise, these classic books are actually really interesting. I suppose it’s possible that this is why they became classics. Of course, it is more enjoyable now that I can read on my own schedule, rather than having to cram to get the book finished before the test. It also helps that if I think a book is simply lousy, I can toss it and move on to a different book.
The first book that I read was the Three Musketeers, by Alexander Dumas. I started reading by a computer, looking everything up on
Later on in the book, I wound up not needing to look things up. It was fun to read, but not very uplifting. It is filled with sword fights and romance, and is lacking in our standards of morality. The main character, D’Artagnan, slept with two different women, while being deeply in love with a third, who was already married to someone else. Every character was deeply flawed, and the story presented these characters as if these flaws were treasures.
Next I read Narrative of the Life and other Writings, by Frederick Douglass. This was very different from anything I had read before. It has an autobiography of Frederick Douglass, as well as several essays and speeches he made. He made some very persuasive speeches. He argued against slavery. With the Civil War, slavery fell. He argued to let blacks fight in the army. As seen in the movie Glory, they did fight during the Civil War. He argued to give blacks the right to vote. They were given that right. He argued against racism. Unfortunately, to some degree, that fight is still ongoing.
One powerful part of the book was when Frederick Douglass told the story of John Brown at Harper’s Ferry. John was a white man, who strongly believed in the wrongness of slavery. He saved money for years to get arms and provisions for a small raiding force. He then captured the small town of Harper’s Ferry and freed about 50 slaves. He was planning on fading away into the mountains, where he would have set up a base of operations to raid other slave plantations and free more slaves.
However, John lingered too long in Harper’s Ferry, trying to take care of the prisoners he had taken. The federal government had time to send in troops, and a company of U.S. Marines led by Lt. Col. Robert E. Lee defeated them. John Brown was brought before a judge, tried for treason, and executed.
Reading his story, as told by Frederick Douglass, I was struck by the majesty of John Brown’s character. Done right, this story would make an extremely powerful movie. This was not a man fighting for his own freedom; this was a man who hated slavery and loved freedom so much, he was willing to give his life for the freedom of others.
Once I finished that book, I started reading The Natural by Bernard Malamud and Kevin Baker. That was dirty; it wound up in the trash before I got very far.
Next up was The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. That one has some dirty parts as well, but it was never as graphic. I really disliked this book. There were many Communist sentiments throughout the book. The people were going through some terrible things. Things needed to change. However, the author kept stating that the only way that these things would ever be able to change would be when the people would inevitably rise up and take the land and the factories back from the owners. That’s Communism in a nutshell.
Also, it stated over and over that business and profit was evil. For example, one paragraph describes some businessmen who “reassure themselves that business is noble and not the curious ritualized thievery that they know it is….”
Almost every time when one person helps another in the book, he is going against company rules, and is likely to get in trouble for it if caught. Meanwhile, each business is doing it’s best to rob and steal from the customers and employees, taking their money or labor and giving them little in return. An approximate quote: “If a man takes a tire without paying for it, that’s robbery, and that’s wrong. However, if a business takes a man’s money and gives him a tire that’s broken and worthless, that’s good business.”
There were some really rough times for the farmers who migrated to California from the dust bowl, and there were some immoral business practices going on at that time. But we solved them through regulation, not revolution. Also, most businesses now realize that good business practices involve honesty. Honesty leads to repeat business, which is the key to good sales.
I found it interesting that when the movie was published in 1940, the director hired some private detectives to investigate to see if matters were really as dire as depicted in the book. The detectives reported back that if anything, the situation was worse than shown.
The book did open my eyes to the problems that can arise in capitalism without regulations. The desire to increase profits by reducing expenses can lead to intolerable work conditions. We now have sweat shops in various third world countries to do work for pennies per day. Enron and others have shown us lots of other ways that companies can cheat and steal.
The book did made me think a lot about politics. Both political parties agree that government is needed to make things fair. The disagreement is about what exactly is fair. The left side believes that mercy is fair, and wants the government to dispense mercy, with such things as universal health care. The right side believes that justice is fair, and wants the government to dispense mercy, with such things as letting people keep more of the money that they earn instead of taking it to pay for a welfare state.
This division enables both sides to demonize each other. The left believes that anyone who opposes them on an issue is either too stupid to know better, or evil enough to oppose mercy. The right believes that anyone who opposes them on an issue is either too stupid to think for themselves, or evil enough to want injustice.
In my opinion, the government is not particularly good at either justice or mercy. However, it seems worse at dispensing mercy. See the recent scandal with the Walter Reed Army Medical Center for a fresh example. Do we really want such health care as this nationalized? I personally believe that the role of the government should usually be to dispense justice, while individual people and charities dispense mercy.
I haven’t liked all of these books. But I have liked some, and they have each made me stop and think.
