It feels like lots of details deployed to justify your advice to “read the classics” and lots of the details deployed to justify the advice “avoid the classics” are basically compatible and some more nuanced theory should be available that is consistent with the totality of the facts like “In cases X and Y read the classics, and in case N and M avoid them” and perhaps the real disagreement is about the nature of the readership and which case better describes the majority of them… or the most important among them?
For example, I think maybe people in their late 20′s or older who were clicky while young and are already polymaths might be helped reading the classics in domains where they want to do creative work, while most 17 year olds would do better to get summaries of the main issues and spend some time arguing with peers about them. For example, I’ve heard Mandlebrot had a knack for digging up neglected gems and resurrecting citation trees with 90 year gaps where all authors in the tree except for him were dead. This seems like a useful technique for boosting a career as a specialized intellectual, but I wouldn’t suggest the trick to a 12 year old.
I think some justification would be helpful for your readers, especially those who don’t know about your relatively high personal efficacy :-)
You asserted something similar and with more original content right next door and I think your implicit justification was spelled out a while ago in the article For progress to be by accumulation and not by random walk, read great books. I’m curious if these links capture the core justification well, or is more necessary to derive your conclusions?
It feels like lots of details deployed to justify your advice to “read the classics” and lots of the details deployed to justify the advice “avoid the classics” are basically compatible and some more nuanced theory should be available that is consistent with the totality of the facts like “In cases X and Y read the classics, and in case N and M avoid them” and perhaps the real disagreement is about the nature of the readership and which case better describes the majority of them… or the most important among them?
For example, I think maybe people in their late 20′s or older who were clicky while young and are already polymaths might be helped reading the classics in domains where they want to do creative work, while most 17 year olds would do better to get summaries of the main issues and spend some time arguing with peers about them. For example, I’ve heard Mandlebrot had a knack for digging up neglected gems and resurrecting citation trees with 90 year gaps where all authors in the tree except for him were dead. This seems like a useful technique for boosting a career as a specialized intellectual, but I wouldn’t suggest the trick to a 12 year old.
I think those links are about right, as is the analysis. Thanks.