The biggest one I can think of is The Catcher in the Rye. It is a good book, and if someone likes The Catcher in the Rye it means they are well-read. If someone says it is their favorite book then they probably identify with it too much and missed the point.
What are some other examples of this that you know of?
I am a bit tired of people that make books their own personality or that attribute personality traits based on books read.
Books that you read and like don’t imply you’re a bad person or a good person. If that were the case, all religious people that read the Bible/Quran/Torah/ etc would be the quintessential good and altruistic person.
If someone read Mein Kampf it doesn’t mean they’re a raging nazi, same as reading books where horrible things happen doesn’t mean you are a killer/rapist/whatever . And it doesn’t even mean that you condone violence.
Books don’t make you gay, they don’t make you evil, arguably we can say they don’t even make you smart - they can increase your knowledge, but that’s not the same as being smart.
Associating a book with a personality trait, or thinking that they can cause X and Y it’s such a simplistic and distorted view that can only stem from lack of critical thinking.
If X book = bad person/good person we wouldn’t need psychologist now, would we? Or police, for that matter. We could weed out the bad apples before they committed crimes, just arrest anyone that buy and read forbidden books.
The fact that banning books is a thing , again, in the US, speaks volume on how incredibly stupid this notion is.
Right. I love horror movies. Especially slashers. Am I an aspiring axe murder? Pretty sure the answer is no.
If I had an award to give it would be yours. 🥇
Agree, but I read the prompt to be less of a literal value judgement and more of a playful exercise. Mein Kamf was required text in one of my classes in school and IMO should be read and studied, for obvious reasons. That being said, would you not be a little suspicious if someone cited it as their favourite? 😂
which class required mein kampf??
It was a multidisciplinary course focused on the history of fascism, totalitarianism, ultra nationalism, etc. taught through a combination of history, literature, and philosophy. I should have clarified that the entire text was not mandatory, however we did read and study a significant amount of excerpts from it. I went to a ‘college prep’ school on a needs scholarship, if that helps provide any context.
In my case German class, in University. Together with “The Crisis of German Ideology: Intellectual Origin of the Third Reich” by George L. Mosse.
I wish more people were like you. Man just because i am reading something doesn’t mean i am liking whatever is happening in the book and want same stuff to happen with me.