Recently I decided to start working my way through the Art of Manliness's 100 Books Every Man Should Read. I had already read several books on the list and enjoyed almost all of those, so I figured this would be a good excuse to reread them while also getting some new material. I also wanted to collect all of these works and place them on my bookshelf, so I decided I would purchase any book I don't already own rather than borrowing from the library. After rereading The Great Gatsby, I turned to the 2nd book on the list: The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli. I did not have a copy, so I checked online and found that I could get a copy for around $7 before shipping. But I was already waiting on another book I had ordered (not from the list of 100), so I thought I would try out the only local place that might have it: The Unorganized Bookstore.
I had never been to The Unorganized Bookstore and was only aware that they sold used books there. I was pessimistic about my chances of leaving the store with that book, but I figured at the very least I would have a chance to check the place out and see what it is they do offer. My family accompanied me to South Marion as my wife needed to stop by the grocery store anyway. We unloaded from the minivan, entered the bookstore, and were not there 5 minutes before my wife spotted exactly what I wanted. Actually, it wasn't exactly what I wanted. It was better! It was a hard cover copy of The Prince that also included Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes which is also on the list of 100! It was a volume in the Encyclopedia Britannica's Great Books of the Western World series. The series was originally produced in 1952, but this book looked as if it had never been opened. And the price of this glorious find? $2.
There were many great works by authors such as Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, William Shakespeare, René Descartes, John Locke, David Hume, Adam Smith, Immanuel Kant, Herman Melville, Count Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, and Charles Dickens. A jackpot of knowledge. And all for either $1 or $2. Nearly everyone can afford to give themselves a top notch education of western philosophy at this price. But if that's too expensive, you can go to your local library. A few years ago, I went to the library in search of The Theory of Money and Credit by Ludwig von Mises. Not surprisingly, my small town library did not carry it. But they informed me that there is an in state library exchange and they were able to procure a copy for me. I used this same program to get my hands on books by Murray Rothbard, Henry Hazlitt, and Walter Block.
Too much effort to go to the library? The internet provides countless books for free. That's how I read Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto, Leonard Read's I, Pencil, and I don't know how many other essays and articles. You can learn math, science, and history with time and effort as your only costs. Heck, even Ivy League schools are offering free courses.
We live in a world where the cost of accessing priceless knowledge is diminishing to the vanishing point. The excuses for not being educated on important matters such as philosophy, psychology, the world's religions, finances, and economic theory are getting flimsier by the day. My advice to you: Read a book. And after you get done reading that, read another book. It doesn't have to be non-fiction. I always feel a bit wiser after reading Dickens or Steinbeck. And if you read with a dictionary by your side (or dictionary.com, as I do), you will find your vocabulary rapidly expanding. As George Orwell explained, language is thought. The more developed your language; the more developed your thought.
Knowledge is the enemy of tyranny and oppression. This is the reason it was made illegal to teach American slaves to read. The tyrant has a much easier time controlling the ignorant than the informed. Inform yourself. Don't be a slave. Read and think about what you read. Every human action is directed by ideas. Good ideas lead to a good society. Go find those good ideas.
Inarguably excellent!
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