by OftenBen

Paraphrasing

I find a certain sort of jealousy in my mother-in-law's book clubs. Because she'll go to these book clubs, and they're popular with moms and whatnot. They'll join these book clubs and they'll all decide 'We'll read this book and when we finish it we'll all get together over coffee and we'll talk about the book.' The reason I'm jealous is because they've all read the same book! Nobody is going to argue about 'what happened to the main character?' and all these things, you can talk about what you think above and beyond the events themselves' We all agree that this happened and what do we think about it? It's the 'what do we think about it?' part that's the meaty, fruitful part of political discussion. Not the arguing over 'the basic facts.' Back in debate class, that was a technique for the person who couldn't win an argument. If you can't win the argument, question the sources, divert the entire affair. I find myself jealous that we haven't all read the same books. I can't get to square one because we don't all know the same things.