If you could require congressmen to read one book, what
would it be?
I have been thinking about this recently. Debate on
issues doesn’t often get very far, because people come
to the table with vastly different backgrounds,
experiences, and set of data. If the party that was in
power, in
a house of congress could require that
everyone in that house read a particular book that year,
it would result in everyone at least being on the same
page. They would have a minimum set of background
information. They would still disagree about how to
interpret the book…
I have been thinking about this a lot recently. I wonder
what book atheist would want religious people to read. I
have been listening to “Reading Lolita in Tehran.” I
think it would be cool if everyone in Iran read that. What
would they like me to read? Perhaps the Koran…
The whole “require” thing would never work, but that
might be a good idea for a website. You enter in what
groups you belong to, and promise to read whatever
book the users of that website vote that you should
read.
The overall website users could have a wikipedia site
were they explain what they hoped you would learn from
it, and your subgroup has a wikipedia type site were you
can explain your reaction to it.
This would get into what a lot of people assume that
subgroups think, and we could find out what reality is…