foundational now if you look one of the
things he points out if you look one of
the first and most important things
there are many types of reading and but
basically there are three fundamental
things that people read for one is
amusement less so today than ever before
traditionally people read for amusement
as a pastime and you would often see
people just on trains or before that
even just sitting with a book Henry
David Thoreau talks about meeting a
farmer in Massachusetts out near Concord
where he was staying there Walden Pond
who was plowing a field and he had
homer's iliad in his pocket in greek and
then when he was when he would take time
to rest
he would sit down and he would read
Homer's Iliad and Thoreau said you know
I started discussing it with him because
at that time Massachusetts had about a
98% literacy rate they've never achieved
that before and one of the things they
studied in grammar schools was Latin and
Greek so here's a farmer peasant farmer
who's reading Homeric Greek which is if
it's difficult Greek it's it's a you
know there's three there's four Greeks
there's there's Homeric there's added
Greek which is the Greek of Plato and
then you have Koine Greek which is New
Testament Greek and now you have modern
Greek and each one is a very distinct
language the Homeric is really the most
vast in terms of vocabulary just like
joelly Arabic it's much faster than what
comes after I mean the proton reduces
the vocabulary considerably because the
proton was meant to be understood by
lots and lots of people so the actual
number of words in the Quran are far
less than exist in the Arabic language
and there's no really difficult words in
the Quran it was very interesting the
proton uses very easy to grasp terms
there's what they call hoody butter on
but generally it's not it's not
difficult arabic in that way so he meets
us and he said you know when he started
discussing it he really didn't have an
idea of the themes of the book but he
just thought it was the greatest yarn
he'd ever read this yeomen you know he's
reading it for amusement now Socrates
quotes Homer a lot for edification like
he uses him as a source of wisdom and it
could be argued that the whole
foundation of Greek civilization is
Homer is the Iliad The Odyssey right but
you could read The Iliad purely for
amusement it's just a great yarn for
somebody now that people read like
People magazine you know you see people
reading people and self and us write all
these you know it used to be life now
it's self
so they read these and and these are
kind of these opiate magazines out there
just everybody just reads them and
they're kind of meaningless tripe and
there's there's nothing really in them
there you're not going to be edified to
find out that so-and-so's got bulimia or
so-and-so's getting a divorce or you
know
Angelina's upset with what's the other
one know the girl that Jennifer there
you go see we know all these things cuz
it's in your face everywhere right you
can't go to you go to the supermarket my
mom's ninety and she was out the
supermarket there was an old lady with
her I mean she's not old for my mom
because she was probably only about 75
my mom says old is ten years whatever
you are older than whatever you are so
for my mom a hundred is old now but you
know this older lady looks at my mom
they're they're looking at all the
magazines on that rack you know National
Enquirer and spectator whatever they are
people and she just looked at my mom and
she said aren't you glad we're on the
way out so what's interesting is if you
look at somebody like you know like
Dorothy Sayers I mean she was lamenting
how bad it was in the 1940s like they
could only I mean I think they would
just drop dead by what they see now but
that's one type of read and then you
have informational reading like time or
Newsweek just to get some information
like what's happening in Iraq you know
or what's happening with the Republican
race things like that so you get type of
information and that is readily it's
easy to read it's not that hard if
you're educated I mean they're they're
writing probably at about 7:30 grade
level I mean that's it most books now
according to you know a friend of mine
who's was asked to write a book for a
major publisher was asked at what level
do you want he said generally the books
that we publish now at a sixth grade
level if you look at
according to you know studies of the
language of debates Kennedy's and
Nixon's debates were at about 11th grade
level of understanding high school
lincoln-douglas debates were at graduate
school level if you just analyze the
language and and and the type of level
they they were speaking now it's about
5th to 6th grade level that's what
they're talking at so this is a kind of
dumbing down but people you know that's
the the level that information is being
written on the the last reason to read
is is to learn something for
understanding what he calls
comprehensive reading is it's actually
for to illuminate you know your
understanding now what's interesting is
one of the things that that Adler argues
is he says that you know people will say
oh I can't read that book it's over my
head and he said that is the very reason
why you should read it
because if you always read things that
are at your level you will never improve
yourself you won't get anything but when
you read something that's over your head
it forces you to like pull ups right the
bars over your head and so as you pull
up right it's really hard at first but
if you keep trying it gets easier and
easier you can do more and more now one
of the things Saint Agustin said about
his education and he was educated in
what are called now you know in our
tradition the liberal arts even though
most liberal arts majors cannot if you
ask them what are the liberal arts they
won't be able to tell you even though
they have a bachelor's in the liberal
arts or a masters in the liberal arts
they won't be able to tell you actually
what they what they refer to
but Agustin wrote a book called it's
it's not really a book but it's it's an
essay on on Christian doctrine in which
he argues it was essential for people to
know these language arts before they
went into the Bible to understand it and
and and he identifies them as grammar
rhetoric and logic and what he said by
mastering these arts he said he was able
to read it that he
was able to understand anything that he
read and to articulate anything he
thought I mean that's the definition of
a literate person that they can
understand what they read and they can
articulate what they think because a lot
of people can't articulate their
thoughts you know I wish I could put it
into words what I'm trying to say but
they don't have that that that's a skill
some people have it more naturally than
others but it is a skill that can be
acquired it's it's not magic you have to
have words you have to know how words
are put together and so basically the
the what he says is he wrote this book
for that third type of reading he didn't
read it for those first two he said if
you're interested in those types of
reading don't bother with this book
you're just wasting your time and so
what he says is the first thing he
talked about reading the word itself you
have to know words because one of the
things one of the real problems with
language is that we simply assume
because we learn language as children
you know we heard our parents say things
in context and we worked it out we
worked out what words mean in context
but words are very many words are
ambiguous you have in logic something
called an amphibole which is where you
have double entendre thinks syntax that
can actually mean different things even
though it said the same way sometimes
it's written and sometimes it's how you
speak it right like if you know in
America you have the right to bear arms
right what does that mean you can have
weapon some people could think what you
meant was you have the right to take off
your shirt and show your arms right
because in some cultures women don't
have the right to bear arms
like in Saudi Arabia it's it's illegal
for a woman to bear her arms right so
there's an example you know of something
that's just the language is not clear
now that's that's a kind of humorous
example but people actually
misunderstand language all the time for
that reason and you have a whole set of
fallacies in logic called the fallacies
of equivocation which is where things
can mean more than one thing we're using
a term to mean different things you know
to give me an example you could say that
you know only men are rational animals
right they're very good at that
statement generally I mean jinn or
rational and angels are rational but
we'll just you know some people don't
really accept those other categories so
we'll just say all all men are rational
animals you accept that mahasin yeah
okay women are not men therefore women
are not rational animals right is that
sound reasoning
yeah okay good see the the equivocal
term there is man because in the first
term it's a universal term that includes
women but in in the conclusion I'm
basically excluding men women from men
so I'm using a term right ambiguously
which is one of the rules in logic that
you cannot do terms have to be
unambiguous so what he says is you have
to know the words that the author is
using and how he's using them and that's
very important so reading what does
reading mean like reading what does it
mean I'm not reading you Father huh you
know I don't what does that mean I'm not
reading you I don't know what you mean
right yeah exactly I don't know where
you're coming from not reading you right
or you know what Mohonasen you're you're
reading between the lines here right I
mean we can use the word in a lot of
different ways right but and so there's
a basic meaning which is just to read
but if you actually look one of the
meanings in Old English for read is the
fourth stomach of a ruminant right
because ruminants have four stomachs and
what do ruminants do they chew the cud
right and they swallow and then what do
they do they spit it back up chew it
some more swallow it spit it back up to
it some more so isn't it interesting
that our word to read and to ruminate to
ponder things has to do with this idea
of chewing you know bacon said that some
books are to be tasted some books are to
be swallowed and some books are to be
chewed and digested right so the idea
that reading is is something that it's
not just this superficial thing here
even in our language and and and that's
one of the beauties of a dictionary of
etymology you see because you can really
get you know Heidegger who's German
philosopher said language is the house
of being what do you think he meant by
that
language is the house of being I mean
first of all what's being how's he using
that term being is a term what is being
existence right everything that is right
has existence that's being like this
so metaphysics is the study of being
right so when he says language is the
house of being what see me what happens
in a house you live in it right you know
you live in your house it's where you
spend your time so for us as
conscientious beings right because we're
that we're really out of all these other
animals that are out there we're the
ones that are thinking about what's
going to happen to you know my
retirement plan you know there's no
birds worrying about their 401ks they're
not they're not out there there's no
lizards that are like oh my god the
economy is so depressed you know what am
I gonna do you know right there they're
not out there but because we can
actually think about things you know
code you Tate think about the future
worry about the future like we language
is where all this experiences is is is
residing and it's residing in our
language and he felt that if you could
get back he believed Greek was the you
know the essential nine which is if you
could get back to these ancient terms
from the Greeks you could really
understand the net like if you could
really get to the meaning of filos and
agape and eros terms that dealt with
love because there's different types of
love the Greeks distinguished the Arabs
distinguished we don't really
distinguish we have to use adjectives to
differentiate between our types of love
but other languages actually have
different words for different types of
love because they recognize they're not
the same so one of the really important
things to have when you're reading
seriously is if you're reading a great
writer because great writers they differ
from other writers in that they're very
specific
about the words they use you know and
when you get into poetry it's even more
so because poets are not only using
words based on their meanings but
they're using words based on their
sounds like in English we have mutes and
liquids
you know mutes and liquids like cut as a
mute because a mute sound you you have
to have a vow to complete it right so
you have a word like stop you know the P
is a mute sound so you know if a poet
uses a mute as opposed to a liquid he's
doing it for a fact or she is doing it
for a fact
so just learning the sounds of words of
why we would choose stone over rock and
they're very different sounds aren't
they stones stepping stone we don't say
stepping rocks right but a stone is a
rock and a rock is a type of stone right
or but when we think of rock it's a very
different thing of stone so poets will
even be more specific but great writers
always use words very specifically then
they're not sloppy in that way and
that's why modern writers you know I had
a teacher in mauritania who said the
difference between the ancients and the
moderns is ancients wrote a sentence
that could be commented on in a book he
said moderns write books that could be
summed up in a sentence it's very
different and I found that to be very
true most of the books that I read by
mono writers they really could be summed
up very briefly whereas if you read a
book like Hawaii that's a so off you
can't sum that book up by Amazon rope
couldn't sum it up very difficult to do
that
so it's important to have a dictionary
and then a good etymological dictionary
to deal with terms so now let me just
look at some of the things that he says
in here and then I'm gonna do a poem
with you I'm gonna actually do this in
two classes because the book can't be
like you know it's there's a lot in here
right now I want you all to read this if
you haven't already read it and if you
can I would get the first edition you
have to buy it used promise you all buy
it at once it shoots up in price because
use books now they've got the computers
so they're very aware of movement with a
book right suddenly it's like seven
dollars and it shoots up to 99 because
they're limited but the 1940 the first
editions my I think much better I've
read both of them I had to read the Van
Doren version in college but this one I
think is a much better edition but one
of the things that he argues in here at
the outside he talks about reading and
then he talks about reading is learning
and he says that there's no such thing
as passive reading you can't read
passively there's only more active
reading but reading is a is a is an
activity watching a film can be
completely passive because you're just a
your your your receptive and it can
stimulate you you know you can at the
emotional level some films consume you
intellectually I mean some films a film
like red beard by Kurosawa is I think as
edifying as a lot of books you know in
just terms of and and great film
directors are do you know they have a
purpose in making their films they're
not making their films simply to
entertain although that's one level that
the film could be could be taken on but
one of the things that he says in here
is that he he realized after he'd gotten
his degree that he was actually a poor
reader this already he's got his PhD and
he was put into this class to teach and
he said that he'd read these books again
and he realized he hadn't really read
them the first time he thought he had
and then he was teaching in this seminar
with Van Doren and what happened was he
said he started reading commentaries and
encyclopedia articles about the books
and so he would come like
thinking he was really prepared but he
said Moses the good students had already
done that so and he said what would
happen is they would end up discussing
things about the book but they weren't
discussing the book and and he said what
really he and and he's very humble in
that he mentions that it was it was a
great blessing for him to have been
exposed
he says fortunately for me I was found
out or else I might have been satisfied
with getting by as a teacher just as I
had got by as a student if I had
succeeded in fooling others I might soon
have deceived myself as well my first
good fortune was in having a colleague
in his teaching Mark Van Doran the poet
he let off in the discussion of poetry
as I was supposed to do in the case of
history science and philosophy he was
several years my senior probably more
honest than I am certainly a better
reader forced to compare my performance
with him I simply could not fool myself
I had not found out what the books
contained by reading them but by reading
about them so he realized he really
hadn't read these books because and this
is why textbooks you see the reason that
you study textbooks do you know why you
study textbook you know why they other
than the money that the textbook
industry makes because you can't
copyright old books other than the money
they make and that's why they change
them every year they have new too even
though no new information they just
change the plain made money but you know
why you read textbooks you know know
anybody it's basically so-called experts
that have read the original books in
that field and they summarize the
knowledge boards digest knowledge so
what they're saying is you're too stupid
you know to really to read original
source material so we're gonna give you
this dumbed down version and but what's
happened consistently over time is they
keep having to meet more and more dumb
because they've never they're not
challenging people and so people become
lazier and lazier to the point that
basically what you're reading is
tertiary you know thought about
something and you're reading it in a in
a prose that is prosaic at best it's bad
it's just bad there's no voice right I
mean if you're used to good literature
Rashidah you've read good literature
right how do you feel about textbooks
it's torture isn't it I can't read
textbooks
I can't I'm sorry I can't read them
because they're so
you know it's like some guy that
memorized Strunk and white and practice
every single rule in that book you know
and so technically you know there's no
grammatical mistakes generally because
they're well edited and everything
there's no voice there's no where as if
you read who would you rather read in
grammar you know I met folda some guy
from Egypt who was born in 1970 or would
you rather read even Hisham one of the
greatest grammarians that ever lived I
mean who would you rather read seriously
who would you rather read about you know
the philosophy of history some guy who
read even Hal dune or would you rather
read even huh don't cuz even hundin's
not that hard I've read him I know he's
not that hard right so so you know
that's one of the things about having
forcing yourself to read these books and
not read what other people say about
these books you read them for yourselves
and and you learn how to read them and
so you have to learn certain skills to
read these books and then this is what
he goes now the other thing he talks
about is dead and living teachers and he
says that in reality the dead teachers
aren't dead T's you know in this culture
they talk about dead white men you know
that phrase which is not really fair to
these people because they they they act
as if somehow these dead white men are
the reason for all this you know there's
this kind of let's get rid of dead white
men because all the problems came from
these dead white men the fact is this
civilization has consistently ignored
most of those dead white men I mean this
civilization has happened in spite of
them because many of them were
persecuted literally killed right they
weren't popular people Spinoza was
kicked out right they weren't popular
people Locke had to flee England from
political persecution right Socrates was
killed by the noble people of Athens but
we have dead brown men right that's our
tradition we've got this whole tradition
of I mean this is largely written
we don't have that many women that wrote
we do have some women that wrote and
Keith Abhinav Ani there were many female
scholars but female the women tended to
be you know you have to have a certain
type of genre in Arabic like a bravado
to write a book because writing a book
is putting it's really not only is it
putting yourself on the line
but it's also there's a certain
assumption that you're qualified to do
something and the women tend to be very
humble wasn't that they weren't great
scholars they had a lot of great
scholars but their nature was more
humble in that so it wasn't that there
weren't great women scholars there were
but they tended not to write and a lot
of them focused on areas like sierra
hadeeth great mahadji that several of
them but and some of the folk aha imam
up the howie's mother um
omaha we was one of the great folk AHA
quoted in the books of fit of the Shafi
school but generally you're looking at a
tradition that was largely written by
men and and that's something to take
into consideration critically when you
read because men have a certain view
that women don't always have the
prophesy said I'm used to take counsel
from the women listen to the women he
would have the women come they had how
people through Nisa
she used to come they make declarations
on the woman's behalf and the Prophet
would force the Sahaba to listen to her
and then he does what do you think and
they would all be woops amazing you know
because they weren't used to having that
voice so but he talks about dead and
living teachers and one of the things he
says is that reading a book is like
reading nature the questions you ask you
have to answer yourself and you ask
questions of a book you have to answer
them yourself whereas in a lecture you
can stop me and say what did you mean by
that
and I can explain it to you alright so a
living teacher is very beneficial in
that they can really help you to
understand some things so
he talks about you know long before the
magazine existed live teachers earn
their living by being readers digests
right in other words a lot of what
teachers and lecturers did is that they
learned all these things and then they
were able to transmit them to other
students but in the end the work you
have to do the work all right what time
is it okay so what I'm going to do right
now is this is just part one of this
lecture but I'll go over quickly you
know he said that that there's there's
three basic ways of reading a book
that's worth reading and he talks about
you know that you have to read it
structurally which is he uses the
metaphor of architecture which is a good
metaphor so you what you want what you
understand is the architecture of the
book because any great book is written
with a structure in mind if you read him
out of as Ali's book that yeah yeah has
extraordinary structure and he
articulates it early on in the book if
you look at he's he has 40 books there's
a reason why he put what's book 20 in
there yeah do you know anybody no book
20 what's book 20 nobody book 20 is the
book of the prophets character so he
puts that right at the heart of the book
and out of 40 books he puts it right at
the heart because that's the heart of
that that that whole opus well what he's
saying is here's the embodiment of
everything that I'm talking about all
these virtues all these qualities that
I'm telling you to inculcate this is the
one you should emulate in them but he's
got ten four books so he does quartet
and there's a reason why he has quartet
I mean there's a reason why we have four
movements in in music as well four is a
very interesting number and they were
very interested in numbers there's four
um Zija right the me
at Fort there's four seasons
right so four is very important in the
life of man because we have four basic
seasons in our lives we have our
childhood we have our you know adulthood
maturity and then we have our fall right
and then you have your winter your last
period and so he puts these in the fore
and then he's got the first is the book
of knowledge that's where he starts
because he's going to define for you
this is yeah yeah Illuma Dean but before
I'm gonna show you how to revive these
Sciences I have to tell you what the LM
is because this is a book about now so
I'm gonna define my terms right so he's
got it's a very structured book so you
have to look at the structure of a book
now
some books are very nice in that they
give you what are called analytical
chapter summaries so you have like a
chapter heading and then you have the
analytical summary so that the author is
telling you here this is what this
chapter is about you'll get that but you
should be doing that work you have to
really break down a chapter right so
looking at the structure of it and then
you have to look also the the second
type is the analytical the interpretive
where you really have to see what the
author is saying what's going on right
and then finally a critical reading
which is where you begin to engage in a
these are the three types that he said
every book has to be read three times
the first is to get the structure the
second is to understand the book and the
third is to have a conversation with
book and you can only he said a lot of
people will jump to the third reading
they'll read it critically without
really understanding and that and and
that's where you get people all of that
book it's rubbish why because you know
the authors full of it you know whatever
but have they really understood the
author's positions because in a lot of
cases they haven't you know there's
people that are entrenched in
ideological positions if I'm a Keynesian
any monetarist that I read I'm just
going to disagree with them off the bat
but if I
don't have a position economically maybe
I'm a Keynesian but I'm open to
persuasion
you know persuade me that monetarist
policies are better than Kings iam or
maybe there's a third way maybe there
you know there's some synthesis out of
this dialectic or maybe you know there's
a fourth of fifth or a six way maybe we
can think outside of the box right but
if I'm entrenched in a certain
ideological viewpoint there's no way I'm
going to be able to read a book with an
open mind so that's one of the things
suspend suspending your criticism
charitable reading alright so basically
what I want to do now before we end is I
want to look at that poem so could
everybody read this is a poem by Pierce
Eva Shelley because reading poems are
like reading a book in miniature you
know a poem is really like a book
alright because it's so packed with
meaning
poets are you know you could write I
could write a whole book and I'm not
exaggerating I could write a book
comment a commenting on this poem I
guarantee you I know I could I could
write a book just commenting on this
poem that's how much meaning I consider
to be in this poem this is the reason I
like this poem is the first poem when I
was 12 years old I was in 13 I was 13
years old in eighth grade mrs. Augustine
Ellie's class she was my English teacher
and I read this poem and it gave me
goosebumps first poem that ever really
affected me like that right so for me it
has a lot of meaning in that way but
anyways some people you know he's from
the romantic spirit Eva Shelley famous
for marrying the woman that wrote famous
novel Frankenstein anyway these guys
were very critical of a lot of things
but so just read it and just just give
you a minute or two just read it and
think about it
so if you had to say in one word what
the poem what kind of what you felt
reading that poem what would it be
that's like yeah I guess if you
hyphenated them we could consider them
one more yeah well okay why what's the
feeling what did you feel
how'd you wrap you read it before no so
it's first time to ever read it okay
it's famous poem so what did you feel
yeah what most struck you about okay
okay
can anybody identify what you think the
main point is rashida what's what do you
think the main point is in here it's
it's definitely a very ironic poem yeah
and what's the central irony
yeah yeah in the middle of these
yeah it's nothing there round the decay
of that colossal wreck boundless and
bare the lone and level sands stretch
far away yeah so I met a traveller from
an antique land who said two vast and
trunkless legs of stone stand in the
desert near them on the sand half sunk a
shattered visage lies whose frown and
wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
tell that it's sculptor well those
passions read which yet survive stamped
on these lifeless things the hand that
mocked them and the heart that fed and
on the pedestal these words appear my
name is Ozymandias king of kings look on
my works ye mighty and despair
that's the quotation my name is
Ozymandias king of kings look on my
works ye mighty and despair nothing
beside remains round the decay of that
colossal wreck boundless and bare the
lone and level sands stretch far away so
it's definitely an ironic poem now if
you get into what are there any words
that other
Ozymandias is actually a real name
because this was you know this was
during the British when they were
beginning to discover Egypt and they
were coming back they were actually
bringing things back as well but they
were discovering and so they were
telling they had these travel logs it
was very popular to read about their
experiences going up the the Nile and
seeing all these incredible Egyptian
ruins of the Pharaohs and became very in
in England it was a big deal and so he's
writing this
poem about somebody who's come back and
he's telling them about his experience
right and he's gonna tell him about this
he was out in the desert right and then
he saw this two vast and trunkless legs
of stone like trunkless legs of stone
it's amazing you trunkless like there's
no body just the legs of stone are there
right stand in the desert right there
standing there without a trunk right
near them and then ne