Through reading, we explore knowledge, practice skills, appreciate life, know the world and feel the future, so that we can transform spiritually and sublimate into a strong, true and rational person. Since reading is so important, what is the standard to measure a person's reading ability?
We often say that someone reads "very well", but many times we use this sentence to describe a person's reading volume, not the quality of reading.
A person who only pursues reading speed and extensive reading content without paying attention to reading accuracy and deep excavation of reading content deserves sympathy and criticism, not praise and encouragement.
To quote the famous philosopher Hobbes: If I read as many books as ordinary people, I will be as stupid as them.
As bacon said, "some books are to be tasted, some books can be swallowed, and some books are to be chewed and digested." This sentence points out the dividing line between greatness and mediocrity of reading.
Those who have made great achievements through reading have achieved achievements that others can't, not because they have read all the books (of course, this is impossible), but it is even possible that they read fewer books than ordinary people, but they read better.
They are proficient in the books they read, and their understanding of the contents introduced in the books can be comparable to that of the authors-they are entitled to be called authorities. Often, they focus on several classic works in different fields-these works are written by outstanding people who have made great achievements in this field, and they are eternal.
When they can improve their understanding ability through reading and reach the same level of cognition as these authors in this field, they will naturally gain the power of knowledge and success will naturally come, which is also the underlying logic that successful people are always good at reading.
Then, to become a great reader, there is still an important question that cannot be ignored in the process of exploring knowledge through reading-"Is this true?" This question applies to any type of reading material. As readers, we have the right and responsibility to question the "authenticity" of every kind of works-history, philosophy, mathematics, science, social science, poetry and drama.
When people who are good at thinking and summarizing exert their intelligence to complete a work, it can be said that the praise of the authenticity of the crystallization of these wisdom is the highest praise. Similarly, criticizing its authenticity can also reflect our serious attitude towards a work.
This is also the greatest respect for an author-I don't recognize your work, there are many flaws in it, but I read your work carefully.
However, it is puzzling that with the popularity of the Internet, the reading methods are becoming more and more diversified, but there is a phenomenon that readers' standards for the "authenticity" of works are gradually reduced or even lost.
Many well-received and widely concerned works almost have the illusion of mocking the facts and deliberately exaggerating. Most readers, especially those who pursue hot spots and traffic, use different criteria to judge whether the works are novel, sensational, seductive, powerful enough to confuse readers' hearts and so on.
Rather than the authenticity of the work, whether the argument is clear, whether the argument is powerful, whether the argument is logical, whether it has inspiring power, whether it brings us a positive attitude, whether it leads us to a universal concept of life, and so on.
As Hegel said, "Being is reasonable". The gradual loss of the pursuit of excellent standards such as "authenticity" of works may have an important relationship with the rise of many writers after the popularization of modern networks-please note that I use "writer" instead of "author".
They don't demand much truth. They pay more attention to the traffic, click-through rate and readers' interest points brought by their works, and don't care about the knowledge itself. If this wave of "writers" is allowed to flood, we can infer that any real works are no longer the focus of readers' attention, so fewer people are willing to write, publish and read such works.
As Rousseau said, "reading too much will lead to some self-righteous ignorant people." Unless the work you read is true to some extent, you don't have to read it again. Then this involves another problem. If you are reading to increase your understanding, then you must have the means and methods to judge the truth of the facts put forward by the author.
At the same time, it should be pointed out that the facts presented by the author are interpreted intentionally or unintentionally, which makes the facts presented by him look so true and credible. Therefore, in reading any book, at any stage, we should review this important question, "Is this true and meaningful?"
As Ba Jin said: "Only an ignorant person will read a work casually and accept it completely, because his mind is empty and can hold many things." I recommend Analytical Reading to you because it allows us to look at any work with a critical eye, look at the author's point of view with an exploratory eye, and accept the knowledge in the book with a rational thinking.
Of course, it should be pointed out that analyzing the laws of reading is an idealized reading. Few people read a book in this way, and even if there is, he can't read many books in this way. But it points out a direction for us to work hard and provides us with a standard to measure great readers. If you want to be a good reader, then you must reach this reading level-analytical reading.
One more thing to emphasize with you is that many books are worth intensive reading-you can learn through analytical reading, and you just need to browse more books. As an intelligent reader, you must understand the characteristics of a book and use different reading skills to read it.
This chapter aims at explaining some self-evident truths in reading in detail, helping people to better understand the true meaning of "reading" and the most effective means to change themselves through reading. Have you read it? I am Xiaohe. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow.