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12 important topics

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The idea for this post came from Ben Sasse’s The Vanishing American Adult. My goal here was not to compile a list of the ideas I agree with, but rather provide a broad but curated selection of the most important (not best) ideas with relevant context. I’m most interested in the conversation that can happen between good pairings. For example, I would never recommend White Fragility on its own, but perhaps paired with White Guilt, it will be an enlightening read. On that note, you’ll notice that some of the titles and authors I’ve selected aren’t yet linked (meaning I either haven’t read or haven’t sufficiently distilled the work in question). As this list becomes more robust. I hope to add context from each grouping as well as each book. It’s a work in progress and I’m always looking for more suggestions to add to each topic. I’m even open to altering sub-topics a bit if you care to comment.

Personal

Agency and Accountability

What manner of men ought ye to be?

  • Seven Habits
  • Twelve Rules for Life
  • Candide
  • The Alchemist
  • How will you measure your Life
  • The screwtape letters

Love and Family

  • Anna Kerenina
  • Crucial conversaations
  • The seven principles for making marriage work
  • Romeo and julliette

Insane Productivity

Political

Identity and community

  • White Fragility
  • White Guilt
  • Thomas Sowell
  • The power of one
  • The long walk to freedom

Economic Distribution

Nature and The State

Western Roots: The American Idea

  • Democracy in America
  • The spirit of the Law
  • Plato’s Republic
  • Thucidides

Universal

Science: Empirical Roots

  • A Brief History of Nearly Everything
  • Greek
  • Descartes
  • Newton
  • Einstein or Bors?
  • Hawking?
  • Something like “The roots of things”

The Trancendent

Epistomology

  • The death of Expertise
  • Hume (Is ought)

Moral Origins

  • The Rightous mind
  • Critique of pure reason
  • Meditations
  • The prince
  • Notes from the underground