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What's the most radical book you've read?

by parisivy on 5/19/24, 9:16 PM with 54 comments

• by rramadass on 5/20/24, 7:21 AM

  For me it was Jack London's fiction The Sea-Wolf. I was/am interested in philosophical ideas/frameworks but the simple direct materialistic philosophy espoused by Wolf Larsen in the above book made me question everything i had read.

  Here are the relevant excerpts : https://old.reddit.com/r/books/comments/1jqpar/what_book_sin...

  We are mere "Animals" with a far more complex social structure than any other species which is why we invent all sorts of "subjective meanings" to "objectively meaningless" life. How to reconcile both is the eternal "Human Condition" problem.

  See also : Philosophy in a Meaningless Life: A System of Nihilism, Consciousness and Reality by James Tartaglia. Free pdf at - https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/monograph?docid=b-9781...

• by unnamed76ri on 5/19/24, 9:55 PM

  The most radical book I’ve read is the Bible. But dramatically different…Discover of Freedom by Rose Wilder Lane perhaps. I don’t agree with everything she wrote but she had some interesting ideas.

• by rerdavies on 5/20/24, 5:24 AM

  Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid

  A unique synthesis of aesthetics and mathematics that completely formed my worldview.

  Perhaps slightly dated, because it was written very early in the computer revolution. Had it been written today, the Artificial Intelligence chapters would be very different.

• by unrestifarian on 5/20/24, 12:52 PM

  Second Nietzsche - Beyond Good & Evil + Thus Spake Zarathustra.

  TPZ is really a poetic/mock religious text version of BG&E.

  The first few chapters of BG&E ask the question: why we humans seek knowledge at all? What drives the will to knowledge. . .feelings? A question most scientists never even think to ask. . but that seems the most radical question of all (as in getting to the 'root' of it all).

• by closetkantian on 5/20/24, 9:47 AM

  The Bible, specifically the New Testament, and more specifically，The Gospels. The reason that it's radical is that Christ overturns traditional notions of morality. Greco-Roman thought saw the rich and powerful as close to the divine but Christ's message is that the meek and poor are prefered by God.

  Coming in at #2, I would argue for Marx, maybe Capital. It's radical because it shows that Capitalism is not a "natural" state of affairs (as much as it would like us to believe that it is).

• by defrost on 5/20/24, 6:39 AM

  Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered (1973) - E. F. Schumacher

• by nonrandomstring on 5/20/24, 12:40 PM

  By that definition of "radical": painful and difficult to read, but yielding enormous positive transformation, then for me Aldous Huxley's "Heaven and Hell" (which contains "Doors of Perceptions"), Erich Fromm's "To Have or to Be", Lewis Mumford's "Technics and Civilization" and his "The Myth of the Machine". YMMV, but for me all of these were "radical" in challenging my purely rational, instrumental, and I think very limited ideas of knowledge, technology and "progress" that I held as a younger scientist/engineer.

• by leobg on 5/20/24, 6:01 AM

  Almost every book by Nietzsche. For example:

  Thus Spoke Zarathustra The Gay Science Human All Too Human

• by TheFreim on 5/20/24, 5:17 AM

  Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge by Paul Feyerabend

• by hiAndrewQuinn on 5/20/24, 7:59 AM

  I've got a whole list of books like this sitting somewhere on my hard drive called "Well-Argued Ideologies Very Different From My Own". Covers the whole gamut, from anti-natalism to Z-theory.

  The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life would be my go-to. It's all about how people's motives are a lot more self-serving than you might think, including your own.

  If you liked that, and then really want to go off the deep end, try The Enigma of Reason.

• by namlem on 5/20/24, 7:17 AM

  The Master and His Emissary by Ian McGilchrist

  Why Materialism is Baloney by Bernardo Kastrup

  The first one really opened my mind to alternate modes of thought. The first half of the book is especially interesting, the second half is skippable. I don't think I could have appreciated the second book if I hadn't read the first.

  The Dictator's Handbook by Bueno de Mesquita and Smith is another good one. Afaik, the first successful attempt to create a true theory of politics.

• by Gnarl on 5/20/24, 8:26 AM

  "Rules for Radicals" by Saul D. Alinsky.

  On how to organize revolutions and how to be careful about what you wish for.

• by mikewarot on 5/20/24, 2:52 PM

  Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions

• by coder4life on 5/20/24, 3:19 AM

  The Human Zoo, Desmond Morris

• by richk449 on 5/20/24, 2:52 AM

  I like the question. Bible aside, here are some other options:

  Where is my Flying Car?

  Zero to One

  Paradise Lost

  East of Eden

• by tobinfekkes on 5/19/24, 11:41 PM

  I second the Bible as the most radical.

• by yuperryippee on 5/20/24, 4:18 AM

  Max Weber - The Sociology of Religion

• by admissionsguy on 5/20/24, 7:24 AM

  Post Office by Charles Bukowski

• by kkoncevicius on 5/20/24, 6:11 AM

  "The reign of quantity and the signs of the times" - Rene Guenon

• by lgvln on 5/20/24, 5:33 AM

  In this political climate: Imagined Communities by Benedict Anderson

• by BjoernKW on 5/20/24, 2:00 AM

  Prometheus Rising, for certainly being rather radical and refreshing.

• by itkovian_ on 5/20/24, 5:26 AM

  Atlas shrugged

• by euroderf on 5/21/24, 12:28 PM

  The Screwing of the Average Man

• by atlanta90210 on 5/20/24, 1:43 PM

  Steal This Book by Abbie Hoffman

• by tschwimmer on 5/20/24, 6:11 AM

  A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn

  Legacy of Ashes by Tim Weiner

  On the Genealogy of Morality by Nietzsche

  Zero to One by Peter Thiel and Blake Masters

• by mattnewport on 5/20/24, 8:58 AM

  Medical Nemesis by Ivan Illich

• by amemaro on 5/20/24, 3:16 AM

  The Rose of Paracelsus

• by AGivant on 5/19/24, 9:54 PM

  Alphabet