{"id":7844,"date":"2014-07-12T11:39:57","date_gmt":"2014-07-12T11:39:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2014\/07\/12\/on-books-and-gratitude-2\/"},"modified":"2014-07-12T11:39:57","modified_gmt":"2014-07-12T11:39:57","slug":"on-books-and-gratitude-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2014\/07\/12\/on-books-and-gratitude-2\/","title":{"rendered":"On Books and Gratitude"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia,palatino;\">Occasionally, Robert Paul Wolff <a href=\"http:\/\/robertpaulwolff.blogspot.com\/2014\/07\/books.html\" target=\"_self\">says something<\/a> at his blog that I agree with completely, for instance:<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia,palatino;\">To an extent I did not anticipate when I set out on life\u2019s path, books have provided many of the joys and satisfactions I have encountered.&#0160; I am constantly grateful to the scholars and thinkers who have written, and continue to write, the books from which I derive such pleasure, both the great authors of the past . . . and those less exalted . . . .<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia,palatino;\">Gratitude is a characteristically conservative virtue; hence its presence in Wolff softens my attitude toward him.&#0160; <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia,palatino;\">As Wolff suggests, our gratitude should extend to the lesser lights, the humbler laborers in the vineyards of <em>Wissenschaft<\/em>, the commentators and translators, the editors and compilers and publishers.&#0160; Beyond that, to the librarians and the supporters of libraries, and all the preservers and transmitters of high culture, and those who, unlettered themselves in the main, defend with blood and iron the precincts of high culture from the barbarians who now once again are massing at the gates.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia,palatino;\">Nor should we forget the dedicated teachers, mostly women, who taught us to read and write and who opened up the world of learning to us and a lifetime of the sublime joys of study and reading and writing.<br \/><\/span><\/p>\n<fieldset class=\"zemanta-related\">\n<legend class=\"zemanta-related-title\">Related articles<\/legend>\n<div class=\"zemanta-article-ul zemanta-article-ul-image\" style=\"margin: 0; 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I am constantly grateful to the scholars and thinkers who have written, and &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2014\/07\/12\/on-books-and-gratitude-2\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;On Books and Gratitude&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[389,289,290,299,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bibliophilia","category-books","category-life-of-the-mind","category-studiousness","category-virtues-and-vices"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7844\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}