I Will Judge How Ever I Like

Here are some arguments about books that I am frankly tired of having.

Idiot: You can't judge a book by its cover!
Me: There are six thousand titles in this particular book store, not counting the three odd hundred monthly magazines that they stock. As I am not inclined to read the back of EVERY(!) SINGLE(!) BOOK(!), or look up a review of EVERY(!) SINGLE(!) BOOK(!) quite often the only thing I have to go by is what is on the cover. I only have so much time on this Earth, and I only have so much reading space within that time. You will forgive me, if I make certain judgments based upon the covers.

It may not be a final and immutable judgment, but all you said in your asinine and half understood repetition of an annoying cliché was that I was not allowed to make a judgment. You didn't add and conditions to the idiotic cliché, you just spewed it. You made it a blanket statement, and that makes you and idiot.

I am maintaining that it is impossible for me to do anything other than that. It is impossible not to judge, because our brains do it automatically. If you're going to talk idiotically, I am going to treat you like an idiot. So here we have my answer... Yes, I can, I just did.

Moron: You can't apply your modern views to a book from XX32!
Me: Because you have a full and complete contextual understanding of the 14th century while allows you to fully and completely judge The Canterbury Tales based on the morals and society of the time when it was written? Do you also fully and completely understand 5th century BC Greece? Because if not, how do you read Herodotus? Ignore the fact, for a moment, that anyone who answers "Yes" to either of those questions is a liar because people who have spent their entire lives studying those periods have told me they don't really understand what it was like. I have only one culture and live in only one time period.

I can only reflect upon any book I read, the morals and cultural understanding of my culture onto any book I read. Even if I know enough to understand that my culture is different from this one I'm reading about, any and all interpretations are going to come from my understanding of the world I live in. Anything else would be borrowed understanding, taking another person's interpretation and trying to make it my own through osmosis. That is fundamentally a dishonest interpretation, because it would not be MY understanding, but allowing another person to understand for me. That may be useful to some extent, but it also means that any understanding I have will be colored by the prejudices and misunderstandings that person built their interpretation upon. This means that someone who doesn't want Sherlock Holmes to be gay, or Dracula to be a story about the dangers of foreign investment, or thinks the Oz stories shouldn't be allegory for American economic society can either ignore or deliberately misinterpret the signs that are there. Likewise, someone who does want those things can ignore the parts that say that TOTALLY isn't what's going on or deliberately misinterpret parts to shape the book to their views.

And in that, even studying other books of the time, I can find justifications for some things. Books where gay men were closeted, had the gay man in question acting very much like Bertie Wooster. Drug addicts, even in books written at the time, DO act like Sméagol behaves in Lord of The Rings. And Fagin is a child molester from the mold of banned and illegally sold books of the era. These are things you can take from BOOKS OF THE TIME!

To put it more succinctly... Yes, I can, I just did.

Complete Asshole: You can't not like a book because you don't like the *Story *Characters *Writing Style *Greater Message *Racism *Constant Rape Scenes *Cut Of The Writers Jib You have to like the book because of the *Story *Characters *Writing Style *Greater Message *Racism *Constant Rape Scenes *Cut Of The Writers Jib

Me: Fuck! You! I have been told that I am not allowed to dislike books for all of these reasons, and that I am required (evidently by law) to keep reading a book I don't like because of some other quality. Well, no, fuck you and fuck your momma! If I have turned against a book, and am not enjoying it, there are roughly a million billion other books I can read. Why must I read it because you have chosen to forgive something? It's horse shit like that that leads to people either not reading, or not talking to you about what they read or saying to me "Don't be friends with that prolapsed asshole of a fuck-faced hipster shithead. All they ever do is tell you what a moron you are for not reading books on their approved list of books." That, by the way, is a direct quote from someone to me about a person who turned out to be a prolapsed asshole of a fuck-faced hipster shithead who told lots of people they were morons for not reading books from his approved list of books. Eventually (seventeen minutes late) I had enough of him and never talked to him again.

You like Harry Potter? Read Harry Potter. I think it's a terrible group of books, but I really won't think you're a moron for liking it. You like Twilight? Read Twilight. Again, from what I know it's a horrifying series and not because of the vampires, but far be it for me to tell you not to read something. You like Ender's Game? It's okay, Orson Scott Card probably wouldn't recognize the guy who wrote that book if he met him in the street. You don't have to consider everything he's done and said since if you don't want to. You like old Regency romance novels? Go ahead and read them in an empire dress while fingering your oddly curled hair.

You have a perfect right to like whatever book you like on whatever terms you have decided to like it. You also have a perfect right to dislike something for whatever reason you've decided to turn against it. Someone can say "Let me persuade you otherwise" and then try some reasoning, but anyone who says you're stupid or less worthy for liking something is an asshole and you have my permission to stop talking to them.

Anyone who tries to use the entertainment you consume as a tool for judgment about you is kind of an asshole anyway. Even if they decide you're okay because you also enjoy sitting in a theater to listen to someone sit in a chair and read excerpts from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas in a squeaky voice. I wouldn't hang out with that person, if they're only prepared to accept your society under those terms.