“I hate books, they only teach us to talk about things we know nothing about “

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I have chosen to look at a quote from the Swiss philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778).

“I hate books, they only teach us to talk about things we know nothing about “

Do I agree with this? No, I do not. Books are very important to us. We learn much from them. Just think how hard it would have been in school if we did not have any books at all. I know that we use physical books less and less every year, but we still read them, just in different forms. We use our computers or listen to audio books.

Back to the quote, I think we learn so much from books! Of course we learn very much from reading a scientific book, but we learn much by reading a novel as well. When we are reading a novel, we have to think in a different way. We have to think how the persons in the novel think and why they do the things they are doing. This is useful in our daily life when we meet persons. We have to know that all persons do not think in the same way as we do all the time. Of course learn this from other places than books too, but they are very good “teachers”, don’t you think?

 

Rousseau said that books make us talk about things we know nothing about…Then I wonder, why do we have to know everything we are talking about? Of course we have to learn information from a biology book for example, but do we really have to know the text in a novel? Isn’t it enough to know what feeling you got from the book when you read it? And isn’t it nice to discuss books, even though the whole story is imaginary?

 

Another thing, if it wouldn’t for the books we would probably know nothing about Rousseau! Somebody has to have written down information (in a book) about his life and his opinions. He probably didn’t think about that =)

 

 

 

http://quote.robertgenn.com/auth_search.php?authid=1194

http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/96jun/rousseau.html

 

/ Hanna


Kommentarer
Postat av: Felica

Very nice entry!!

I agree with you Hanna, we definitley need books to learn new things and to carry on informatoin that otherwise just would be passed on by people telling other people. So without books the information would keep changing every time someone told it.



And my opinion is that a good novel is the best way of escaping reality and live another life somewhere else and just forget about your own problem and focus on the characters problems for a while. As long as you don't let their problems take over your life of course!

2011-03-30 @ 11:43:02
Postat av: Calle

Great article Hanna

Without books we wouldnt have any knowlodge about what happend back in time. And would there by any religon or beleifs at all? What would the society look like without the knowledge a book has. I would say that we are depending in books.

2011-03-30 @ 11:43:51
Postat av: Hanna

You are right Felicia =)! Without books the story will change every time it is told!



Calle, I think we would have religion without books, but not in the same way as we have today. We would have more religions and they wouldn't be as big as those in today's society. The "stories", like the Bible, would have been told just mouth to mouth and as Felicia said, the story will change. Therefore will the religion change from person to person...

What do you think about that? Is it a possibility? =)

2011-03-30 @ 12:20:39
Postat av: Alexandra

Good article Hanna!

I totally agree with you, books may be boring but they are very important and useful. If we haven't had books I don't think that we would have had computers today either because someone came up with the idea of writing down the things they said so that we could read about it and as you said, if Rosseaus thought and opinions hadn't been written down in a book we shouldn't have know anything about him today. :)

2011-03-30 @ 12:21:35
Postat av: Anonym

if it's possible to change a religon is in my opinion pretty obvious because you often hear that "it's said in the bible" and without books there would be no straight lines and very unclear rules within religon which is makes them just religons. What would a religon be without rules... not very much because if everyone were doing it different there would be arguments and soon the religon would split up. Good entry-!

2011-03-30 @ 12:29:49
Postat av: Lia

Nice article Hanna! I agree with you that books are very important in our education. Also, when you read books, you get problems and ideas from someone else's perspective, which allows you to think from many angles in the future.

Rousseau actually published 4 books himself, one of them being an autobiography. The other books were mainly on his ideas on education, how society should be run etc. This seems a bit weird, that he said he hated books but still wrote books himself!

However, the French monarchy wanted him to be arrested because of these 2 books, which may be a reason to why he says that he hates books, since they brought a lot of trouble to his own life. Or maybe this quote has been taken a bit out of context? There may have been a "but..." following this quote, but maybe nobody cared to write down the "but..."?

2011-04-06 @ 11:38:41
Postat av: Hanna

Maybe you're right, this quote might have been taken out of its context... and you say that he had some problems with his life after have published two books, this quote actually make sense... But I have commented the quote as if it was complete =) And I'm glad that you agree with me =)

2011-04-06 @ 11:49:16
Postat av: jakob lundén

if it's possible to change a religon is in my opinion pretty obvious because you often hear that "it's said in the bible" and without books there would be no straight lines and very unclear rules within religon which is makes them just religons. What would a religon be without rules... not very much because if everyone were doing it different there would be arguments and soon the religon would split up. Good entry-! old comment...without name :P

2011-04-14 @ 11:50:39

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