I started listening to this book because of a podcast. The presenter mentioned that to him our world has followed the path of Brave New World more than 1984. I had this book on my list for a while, but this comment really intrigued me and I had an audio of the book so was listening to it as was doing some things around the house. At first, I was not sure if I fully agree with the podcast presenter yet but can see his point. Until the end of the book you hear so much about a society that focuses on technology advancements and pleasure seeking. I had to step back before I saw how the underlying idea was not the technology focus but the education focus. To me both books teach about education and were we get out education. The media plays a huge role in what we know and so does the education or training we receive. My thought right now is that if our education is not toward scholarship and statesmanship than media can have a larger influence in our lives, so the podcast presenter point has a lot of merit.
As I finished listening this, I decided to do a little research into the names of some of the characters because thought I did not recognize all the names I did recognize some and thought the author might be intentional about his choices. I was browsing through SparkNotes and noticed something that really changed the book for me. The section on the allusion was very impactful. I had picked up on some of them but there were others that I missed but the part that was impactful was the listing out of the quotes and their allusion to Shakespeare's works. It was very interesting to see which plays were referenced and which plays were not. I had just finished studying two of the plays mentioned. One of the plays was my first deep dive into the storyline (Troilus and Cressida). Because I understood that play better the allusions become very impactful. Knowing and connecting the allusions brought so much more depth to the points. In my mind it shifted the main take-aways for me from the focus to pleasure and technology to the role of education. At the end of this book there is a conversation about education (chapter 16) that really rang true to me. I had to re-read the last couple of chapters. As I was thinking about the conversations in the book and Shakespeare's alliterations, I looked through a note I had for my next plan of study where I had posted this idea: Shakespeare focused on emotional success (or lack of it) while having faith in intuition and principles when compared to Aristotle whose faith was placed in evidence and experts while focusing on material success (I believe this idea came from Oliver DeMille but am not certain). The idea had intrigued me, and I wanted to study it out some more. After listening to this book, this idea does seem to line up with my take-aways from Brave New World. The story becomes so much richer because of my experience with Shakespeare. Had I not recognized that my education was missing so many things as I was raising my family I would never have read much Shakespeare. I wanted better for my family which lead me on a new journey with Thomas Jefferson Education (tjed.org and LEMI). Because of that journey a podcast presenter expressed an idea that I did not ignore and wanted to investigate which has me pondering yet again the importance of how of reading and discussing great books and ideas changes everything.
As I finished listening this, I decided to do a little research into the names of some of the characters because thought I did not recognize all the names I did recognize some and thought the author might be intentional about his choices. I was browsing through SparkNotes and noticed something that really changed the book for me. The section on the allusion was very impactful. I had picked up on some of them but there were others that I missed but the part that was impactful was the listing out of the quotes and their allusion to Shakespeare's works. It was very interesting to see which plays were referenced and which plays were not. I had just finished studying two of the plays mentioned. One of the plays was my first deep dive into the storyline (Troilus and Cressida). Because I understood that play better the allusions become very impactful. Knowing and connecting the allusions brought so much more depth to the points. In my mind it shifted the main take-aways for me from the focus to pleasure and technology to the role of education. At the end of this book there is a conversation about education (chapter 16) that really rang true to me. I had to re-read the last couple of chapters. As I was thinking about the conversations in the book and Shakespeare's alliterations, I looked through a note I had for my next plan of study where I had posted this idea: Shakespeare focused on emotional success (or lack of it) while having faith in intuition and principles when compared to Aristotle whose faith was placed in evidence and experts while focusing on material success (I believe this idea came from Oliver DeMille but am not certain). The idea had intrigued me, and I wanted to study it out some more. After listening to this book, this idea does seem to line up with my take-aways from Brave New World. The story becomes so much richer because of my experience with Shakespeare. Had I not recognized that my education was missing so many things as I was raising my family I would never have read much Shakespeare. I wanted better for my family which lead me on a new journey with Thomas Jefferson Education (tjed.org and LEMI). Because of that journey a podcast presenter expressed an idea that I did not ignore and wanted to investigate which has me pondering yet again the importance of how of reading and discussing great books and ideas changes everything.
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