Tag: self-education

Books of Knowledge… by Herbert S. Zim (Among Others)

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Golden Guide - Wikipedia

Here are a few I still have

How about a little break from the nooze, for something more wholesome?

When I was a wee child, one of the first authors whose name I could cite was Herbert S. Zim, author of almost 100 books on nature and other scientific subjects (https://www.paperbackswap.com/Herbert-S-Zim/author/)–you name it, he wrote about it. Golden Guides, assorted field guides for older children and adults, on everything from insects to dinosaurs, and even a book or two on cars: he must have been a terribly busy man.

He wasn’t the only one. Bertha Morris Parker could give him a run for his money. She wrote the whole Golden Encyclopedia for children and wound up with more than 80 titles in print.

The Golden Book Encyclopedia 16 Volume Set

16 volumes! I wish I still had them.

My parents saw to it that my brother and sister and I had plenty (!) of books to read–our house was full of them. We picked up a habit of reading that’s still with me today. And it wasn’t all science: novels, histories, collections of Bible stories (some of those illustrations by Gustave Dore kind of freaked me out), and stacks of comics. My father had a Life of Kit Carson that’s probably worth its weight in gold today. I read it several times. He also had Knute Rockne; I read that, too.

Are kids still reading books like these? I wish I could say yes, but I don’t know. I suspect not. It’s a kind of poverty. And that makes me sad.

‘Self-Education… Through Entertainment’ (2015)

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Image result for images of couch potatoes

Working on his master’s degree…

If you’ve been reading this blog for any amount of time, you know that this is one of the major points I make: that we “educate” ourselves through entertainment. We do it passively, without knowing that we’re doing it. That’s what makes it so effective.

Self-Education… Through Entertainment

I didn’t have this insight until 2015. I credit the writings of R.J. Rushdoony for it.

The thing that makes it so effective is that our defenses are totally down. It’s only a movie. Only a TV show. But that “only” is a killer.

We can consume this stuff with our defenses up, and learn from it. But just make sure you get rid of the “only” first.

Memory Lane: Mark Trail

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Image result for images of mark trail color comics

You want to know how I became Mr. Nature? Mark Trail color comics in the Sunday papers, that’s how! I never missed ’em.

During the week, the daily Mark Trail comic strip in black and white concerned itself with story lines. I can’t say I remember any of those. The real action was on Sunday, when the story was set aside and Mark Trail discoursed on spiders, lizards, birds, butterflies, rodents, and every other kind of animal you could think of. How else does a kid find out about the four-eyed fish, the archerfish, the chuckwalla (that’s a lizard, for us Eastern folks), ants “milking” aphids like miniature cows, and all sorts of other cool stuff? And the artwork was superb!

God’s creation is an inexhaustible source of inspiration, and it’ll last you all your life–as long as you don’t let other aspects of our benighted pop culture dry up your brain.

Two More Books I Won’t Review

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Our cultural landscape looks like this.

Those addled publicists out there just won’t stop pitching books to me that I wouldn’t read, let alone review, if you paid me extra for it.

As usual, I won’t divulge the authors’ names or the titles because I don’t want to give them any free publicity. I only mention them because it troubles me that there is so much dreck out there.

What we read for entertainment, what we watch on a TV or a movie screen, is more than just a way to pass the time. It’s one of the ways we educate ourselves. And all too often we educate ourselves into folly. Or worse.

One of these books is “a paranormal erotic thriller” which might be described as “James Bond meets 50 Shades of Grey,” only in this one James Bond is a woman super-spy who gets off on being dominated by her mysterious dark putz-head of a boss. If you’ve ever wondered why more and more people seem to be getting stupider and stupider, this may give you a clue.

The other is a lot of lesbian tommyrot intended to portray sinful and dysfunctional activities as praiseworthy, even heroic, and totally mainstream. What made that publicist think I would want to read it? But again, here is our entertainment media educating us into folly.

I do not like to try to imagine the mental landscape of anyone who reads books like these one after another and doesn’t see anything wrong with them.

But then I don’t have to imagine it, do I? Our current social and political landscape, which I can’t avoid seeing if I try, leaves nothing to the imagination.