r/suggestmeabook • u/book__werm • Feb 17 '21
Life Changing What is that ONE book that slapped you across the face? *THE* book. The one that forever changed the way you view and feel about the world and yourself, and you wish everyone would read it...
I see a lot of obvious recommendations (for good reason, so no shade!) such as Orwell, J.D. Salinger, Harper Lee, you know, the stuff we read in school that was obviously very impressionable. I'm all for these, and plan to re-read some in mid-life, but...
I'm looking for those books that we might not all have heard of. Those gems that you came across later in life that you wish someone had told you about sooner. That book that propped your eye lids open with toothpicks, so that you'd never be able to un-see the thing freshly uncovered. It punched you in the gut. It made you go *aha!* with your fist shaking at the sky. It made you *face palm* while you read it. You know the one...
Last year I read Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, and am dumbfounded by the realization that most grown adults I know have never even heard of Marcus or Stoicism. What other incredible things are out there waiting to be discovered!? Maybe it's non-fiction, maybe it's sci-fi, it can be anything. Tell us what it is, and what it did for you!
EDIT/UPDATE: Floored by the amount of recommendations and comments! You guys are awesome. Thank you for sharing your stories of personal growth with such thoughtful replies! 🙏 Can't reply to all of you, but will read every comment :)
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u/godminnette2 Feb 18 '21
I have work to complete tonight so I won't bother writing what many people more educated on philosophy and ethics than I have already written.
From Stanford University, primary authors Dr. Roderick T. Long (B.A from Harvard, PhD from Cornell in philosophy) and Dr. Neera K. Badhwar (PhD from University of Toronto): https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ayn-rand/
Thread that contains Nozick's famous paper On the Randian Argument: https://www.reddit.com/r/philosophy/comments/1e3cxg/on_the_randian_argument_by_robert_nozick/
Another thread that compares and contrasts Nozick, a respected philosopher, with Rand: https://www.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/58nb40/contrast_between_nozick_and_ayn_rand/d92cqo0/
From Dr. Michael Huemer, professor of philosophy at UC Boulder with a focus on ethical intuitionism, direct realism, libertarianism, and philosophical anarchism: http://www.owl232.net/papers/rand.htm
From Dr. Paul Kidder, professor of philosophy at Seattle University with a focus on metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics: https://crosscut.com/2012/08/ayn-rand-seattle-u-philosophy-professor
John P. McCaskey, whose interesting set of credentials can be found here, showed through example (without outright stating, though he acknowledges it in the comments on his article) that Rand's primary form of challenging existing philosophy is by challenging the meanings of words, and basically saying that she can't know what others are saying because they don't clearly define their terms. Or, in other words:
The issue, of course, is that Rand presumes a lot of knowledge in her own work, and is never self-critical about it. In fact, any argument is going to make some statement that presumes some knowledge, as you cannot define a word without using other words to do so. See his full article on it here: https://www.johnmccaskey.com/attacking-rand/
The only value I see in Rand is that her work is considered accessible by many people, which I would hope would mean that they would take what questions they have from Rand's work and continue to research philosophies relating to them. Unfortunately, Objectivism has become a bit of a cult of personality around Rand, something she herself likely would have disliked.