A Clash of Media: Perspectives on Intrinsic Value

Dear readers, the blog will once again continue on the philosophical track; I got some good answers to my last post, so I'm hoping to hear some more on this note.

As my forewarning: as many of you probably know, I'm a pretty big reader. I always have been since I was young. I was that kid staying up late reading with a flashlight under covers, the one who took a book with him where ever he went, the one who belongs to the probably minority of our generation whose parents actually had to tell him to stop reading so much. I'm one of those people who rarely think a movie/tv adaptation is better than the source book, one of those who doesn't have "lol i h8 books" written on my "About me" section of Facebook. Thus I feel I have a pretty balanced perspective on the following discussion.

As all of you are sure I'm aware, The Hunger Games has been making a big splash as being the current hit book for children/young adults. This follows on the trail of the Twilight and Harry Potter series, the latter of which is often referred to as the series that "got a whole generation of children reading again."

I find this an interesting claim, because it highlights an underlying theme in modern American society. That is, specifically, that children aren't reading anymore, and this is a Bad Thing. Authors like Collins and Rowling are doing important work in getting children engaged in reading again.

This is a line of thought I sort of bought absentmindedly. Of course people should be reading, I thought, it's something I enjoy. It's always painted as a slightly more intellectual and satisfying past-time than, say, watching TV.

Subtle Distinctions: The Blog gets a bit philosophical

"Early in life I had to choose between honest arrogance and hypocritical humility. I chose the former and have seen no reason to change. "


-Frank Lloyd Wright

Haha, Google makes it easy to find quotes for any occasion :-P

I recently (for science?) took a personality test and it spat out the result that, among other things, measure quite a bit on the arrogant side. This proceeded to set off a serious of thoughts on my head, that for whatever reason I feel compelled to write about. Normally this isn't the kind of thing I'd discuss publicly, but since this blog isn't searchable and as far as statistics indicate only a select few of you even read this, I'm going ahead and writing it.