How do you put aside your own feelings when reading?

[Thomas Shey]

The discussion about the novel Starship Troopers and the views about it, got me wondering:

Is it hard or easy to put aside your own personal views when you read a book? Or is it out right impossible?

Its harder these days. There were books I read in my youth where things just flowed off me like water off a duck's back (some of H. Beam Piper's work for example) that on rereading I found more than a little bit jarring.

 

[trappedslider]

I have read a few of her “philosophical” works just to see what all the fuss is about, turns out it’s nothing more than nonsensical and self-serving gibberish. You’re not missing anything.

Title text: I had a hard time with Ayn Rand because I found myself enthusiastically agreeing with the first 90% of every sentence, but getting lost at 'therefore, be a huge naughty word to everyone.'

 

[Gradine]

Anthem was required reading in High School in the early 90s. I enjoyed it then but that was 30+ years ago. I have not read any of her other stuff.

Which do you think is the worse experience, reading Anthem (book) or playing Anthem (2019 video game)

 

[Belen]

Which do you think is the worse experience, reading Anthem (book) or playing Anthem (2019 video game)

I’d have to say the game. The game play was fun but the story was and town were a mess.

 

[MGibster]

Is it hard or easy to put aside your own personal views when you read a book? Or is it out right impossible?

My personal view is that vigilantism is bad, but I can put that aside to enjoy a Batman comic book. I utterly reject the idea that learning more about the universe would lead to some sort of madness, but I still enjoy Lovecraft. So, yeah, I can put aside my personal views when I read a book.

 

[Ryujin]

Very occasionally I set aside my priority of whether I expect to enjoy a book, more or less so that I can assess what I’m reading outside that framework. That’s how I read Twilight, Atlas Shrugged, The Churchill Factor (a terrible book by Boris Johnson), and 12 Rules for Life (an even worse one by Jordan Peterson), and so on. That is also how I read Starship Troopers after the first couple of chapters (I didn’t enjoy it; I thought the author’s opinions about society, politics, and social responsibility were obvious and I disagreed with them). It’s hard to have an opinion on something without having read it.

But I don’t set aside my feelings - I don’t even really know how I’d do that. My emotions are part of my critical and cognitive faculties; like most people, I think about my feelings and feel my thoughts.

I had the "benefit" of hearing Jordan Peterson's views locally, so had no desire to read any of his books.

 

[Autumnal]

I agree with what others have suggested, that it’s easier to do this when young. Over time, particularly if you and/or people you care about suffer grief and loss created by adherents of view X, you’re going to have a harder time approaching works built with X in creators’ minds. And rightly so: your real life should matter. Read widely, and then deeply.

 

[Umbran]

Is it hard or easy to put aside your own personal views when you read a book? Or is it out right impossible?

I'm not sure why I would want to do that. Much of the value of a work of fiction is in how it interacts with my personal views!

Edit to add: I'll give an example - the graphic novel "We3" by Grant Morrison. This work means nothing if it does not bump up against the reader's presumed empathy for and care about the innocence of animals.

 

[Mercurius]

Part of the joy of reading is that I get to enter the mind of someone else. I don't need (or even want) the events of the story to mirror my own personal worldview. Sometimes that can be nice - for instance, reading an author who sees things similarly and/or I think I would like personally. But I also enjoy reading someone who is very different than I am, even if in ways I don't resonate with, or that I find off-putting. But even then, I sort of see it like being an anthropologist: I'm entering a different "cultural sphere."

Now if the author seems to get off on things that I find detestable - like graphic depictions of torture and suffering, I might put the book down. I don't take pleasure in reading about such things.

I also tend to agree with what I heard someone say once, that "no one is smart enough to be wrong about everything." Or some such. So even when I'm reading someone with a very different worldview, even one I consider detestable, it is interesting to see from their eyes, how it is true for them, a "holism," if you will.

 

[Retros_x]

I don't think its possible to put aside feelings when reading. Reading is not a robotic process. Its not like making laundry. If you want to truly understand a text you need to somehow reflect on it and to reflect on the text you need to evaluate the feelings the text invokes in you.

But if one have problems with emotional regulation, I can understand how it becomes difficult for them to read content that invokes unpleasant feelings like anger or sadness.

edit: Took out one sentence that was too accusatory. Also for clarification: I use emotional regulation here as "Being able to deal with feelings". Overall this sentence was meant in an understanding way for people who might not be able to read something because of the feelings it invokes. But ignoring feelings and putting them aside is not possible IMO. You either can deal with them or not (=emotional regulation).