Boulder Great Books

With a slight shuffle in the schedule, on Thursday, March 19, we will follow the Socratic admonition to "Know Thyself" in a way Socrates could never have imagined. No, we are not contemplating our navels, we are going inside our navels, inside our bodies -- and the bodies of plants and animals and, for that matter seemingly all other life forms -- to understand the complex, intricately orchestrated world of microbes.

Last November, we read Ed Yong's recent book An Immense World which focused on the enormous variety in the ways animals have adapted to living on this planet.. On Thursday, March 19, we will read his I Contain Multitudes in which he brings the same entertaining wit and mind-bending insights to the perhaps even more startling ways microbes have adapted to living in us (and in all other forms of life). From squids that carry their own (microbial) lanterns to the bizarre transformations of Hydroides elegans to pangolins and plankton to humans (inside and out) and beyond, Yong describes a world with a seemingly infinite variety not only of micro-organisms and some of their truly "alternative lifestyles" but of the symbioitic relationships between them and all other life forms.

Join us March 19!

Next in the shuffle will be Eric Aaron's Hayek versus Marx on April 2 followed on April 16 by Frederik Pohl and CM Kornbluth's The Space Merchants. See the schedule for details.

In our last episode, we discussed Bryan Caplan's highly opinionated The Myth of the Rational Voter in which Caplan applies economic decision making ideas to the franchise and finds it woefully wanting. After critiquing the existing voting analyses by economists and political theorists, Caplan framed the problem as voter ignorance and irrational economic beliefs that drive bad voting.

David Van Reybrouck has a different critique: democracy suffers from a spectrum of problems. While the vast majority of people in non-democratic countries aspire to democratic governance, 2/3 to 3/4 of people in the European Union distrust their most important political institutions. Elected officials are not giving people what they want. Responsible citizens feel like ballot fodder. Voter participation is sagging..

Unlike Caplan*, in Against Voting, Van Reybroick actually has a proposed solution: sortition. No, I didn't replace "ed" in that word with "ort". Van Reybrouck digs back to ancient Anthens for what might be the simplest way of selecting a representative body. He promotes

a consciously neutral procedure whereby political opportunities can be distributed fairly and discord avoided. The risk of corruption reduces, election fever abates and attention to the common good increases

Join us March 5!

P.S. Van Reybrouck reaks quite quickly. If you are interested in a fascinating look at alternatives to representational governance, check out Brend Reiter's The Crisis of Liberal Democracy and the Path Ahead.

* OK, Caplan does have a solution that includes force feeding voters mainstream economics by IV and restricting voting to the sufficiently educated and intelligent.

We are a group of active minds exploring a wide variety of topics
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We like to keep our conversations focused with the close-to-the-text analysis that thoughtful books require. We revel in making connections among the ideas in a book and between the many books we read. If you are looking for interesting discussions of idea filled books, come join us!

Boulder Great Books meets year-round on first and third Thursday nights from 6PM until 8PM, via remote conferencing -- for details, contact us The group is free and open to the public. Newcomers are welcome anytime!

Selections sometimes evolve as we read so please see the current schedule. Better yet, join out mailing list to receive (sometimes) entertaining announcements about upcoming readings
We'd love to know your thoughts on our current and future readings -- send us an email

Boulder Great Books takes its name from its focus at its founding in 1988 on materials from the Great Books Foundation. Having read the Great Books 5 year series twice (!), followed by other materials from the Foundation, we shifted our focus to read a cross-section of thought provoking works, ancient and contemporary, fiction and non-fiction, in English and in translation.

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