Reading and Effort / Peter Singer

Last year, I visited a large bookstore in downtown Seoul, and after a long time,  Ha-joon Chang, an economics professor at Cambridge University, published his new book, Edible Economics. I was glad to have read [Economics the user's guide] several times because of the author's tendency to solve it easily and interestingly, not only in formalistic discourse. But I didn't have time at the time. So if the Korean translation of Edible Economics had been published, it would have taken less than two hours to read the book. However, in order to read it in the English version, the cover was almost worn out by carrying it around. After reading it twice, the Korean translation version was published.

In addition to the burden of being able to read English books quickly in order to gain wider knowledge, I also thought that I should do at least manifold basic languages. But a lot of ways have messed up my head. So I organized it simply and ideologically. I didn't care about the results and planned to memorize a book one by one, even if it took time. What had to be done now was a matter of willpower and action. - Ideology is used at times like this.

It is said that the reason why Singapore achieved phenomenal economic development is because English was used as the official language. This is the result of inducing many citizens to exchange a wide range of information, not peripheral. When North Korean President Kim Jong-un was in power, I thought that President Kim Jong-un's English skills would be helpful to solve the difficulties facing North Korea. However, I thought that the heavy reality of North Korea would take a lot of time and effort. And in the long run, I thought that young people in North Korea would need a lot of foreign language education.

 

The acquisition of information through reading is important. I have emphasized a lot the fact that blind ideology or blind religion eliminates the acquisition of various information and rational thinking. It was seen as an example of Mao Zedong that even blind ideologies could not be established by biased reading. - Mao Zedong returned to a feudal attitude even after a difficult communist revolution, and there was a problem that the books Mao Zedong read mainly were feudal books related to Chinese past history. Mao Zedong imitated feudal emperors as he grew older.

 

I think it's more important to "recognize the fact that something must be done urgently to reduce the pain and suffering of others" than to "promote various other values such as beauty, knowledge, autonomy, or happiness" through the book. The fact that I still emphasize the responsibility of books to make a better world also means that I still have not abandoned my belief in rational thinking. Books should be a place of rational critical thinking, and I think reading books is finally completed when enlightenment through this process is practiced in the field of life.

 

- Peter Singer -