Posted on 07/21/2003 12:26:59 PM PDT by PeterPrinciple
Some people bluntly say they don't read.
Others offer an excuse: They would read if only they had the time.
I will also be blunt: People who don't read cheat themselves. By not reading, they limit what they can achieve, make mistakes they could avoid, and miss opportunities that could improve their lives. Finally, as the gaps in their knowledge become apparent, they must reconcile themselves to not being taken seriously.
Before going any further, I must make clear that I do not urge you to spend the rest of your days nestled in a cozy spot at the local library. Far from it.
Actively involved in politics since the early 1960's at the local, state and national levels, I understand the importance of action. Nothing moves unless it is pushed. Political activists elect candidates, pass or repeal laws and determine public policy. But while boundless energy and enthusiasm are essential in activists, something else is necessary. To be successful leaders, activists must also be well-informed.
You can learn in three different ways:
1) By personal experience: The school of hard knocks is the most painful way to learn anything. I can't deny that this school teaches its lessons well. By the time you graduate, if ever, you're too old to go to work. Students who study only at this school learn things only the hard way, and it's impossible to learn by first-hand experience everything you should know.
2) By observation: By paying attention to what goes on around you, you can learn from the experience of others. Careful observation is invaluable in any field, from sports to science to politics. Success in this school is limited by the individual's environment -- and his own power of observation.
3) By studying the experience of others: You can't experience or observe everything. But you can, by reading, learn from the experiences of your contemporaries, the previous generation, and those who lived ages ago. A careful course of reading augments the other two schools without limitation.
In politics, it is not enough to know what's right. To succeed, your command of a subject must be so secure that you can persuade people you are right. And then you must activate them.
You should have such a mastery of the issues that you can frame your arguments to anticipate and render ineffective your opponent's arguments. You should know all you can learn about what works and what doesn't work. How do you accomplish this? Schooling alone will not suffice. All knowledgeable people are largely self-taught.
The surest way to acquire a wide range of useful knowledge is to read every day.
My introduction to books came early, before I started school. We had a lot of books in our house. First, my parents regularly read aloud to me. After I learned to read, they did what Samuel Johnson advised other parents to do more than 200 years ago:
I would put a child into a library (where no unfit books are) and let him read at his choice. A child should not be discouraged from reading anything that he takes a liking to, from a notion that it is above his reach. If that be the case, the child will soon find it out and desist; if not, he of course gains the instruction; which is so much the more likely to come, from the inclination with which he takes up the study.
In time, I moved on from my family's books to my grammar school library and then to the well-stocked children's section of the East Baton Rouge Parish public library. From there I went to the well-stocked library of my junior high school, where I read, if not all, most of its books. After this, I went to a small rural high school and read every book in that school's library at least once.
Sometimes my reading is systematic. I took a decade to read at my cabin in the Blue Ridge mountains everything I could about the Roman Republic and the Greek city-state era. The experience of people in those semi-democratic periods still applies helpfully to modern-day America.
Well-written history books and biographies have all the drama of novels and the added merit of being (generally) true. Anyone interested in the public policy process should read biographies and autobiographies of political leaders. Such books, even if the authors are unsympathetic to conservatives, unfailingly contain a trove of information about how to succeed in the public policy process.
The art of politics cannot be as exact as, say, mathematics or chemistry, because it is so much more complicated. A number doesn't care if it's added or subtracted; a chemical doesn't care about its history or its future. Understanding people requires wisdom, not just knowledge. You have time to read, if you want to, every day. Read in bed, before you go to sleep. Read when you wake up in the morning. Read while your car is being serviced. Read on airplanes. Read during the dull parts of meetings you have to attend. Read while you're waiting in those long lines to get your driver's license renewed. Almost every day you can reclaim, by reading, some of your time which otherwise would be wasted.
You don't have to finish a book before starting another. Most well-educated readers read two or more books at the same time. Read some in one book. If you temporarily tire of it, read some in another for a change. There is no shortage of good books available.
Over the years, I have often been asked to recommend books I consider of particular value for conservatives. What follows is a core library of 25 books, most of which can be found in libraries and in good used-book stores. I introduce the authors in alphabetical order. Every conservative leader should read (and re-read) these books.
No one could agree with every view expressed in these books. In some matters the authors have opposing views. But any conservative will find merit in each one.
Morton's Twenty-Five Recommended Books
Seven Fat Years; And How To Do It Again by Robert L. Bartley
The Law by Frederic Bastiat
Up From Liberalism by William F. Buckley, Jr.
Selected Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke by Edmund Burke
Suicide of the West by James Burnham
Witness by Whittaker Chambers
Ronald Reagan by Dinesh D'Souza
Advise and Consent by Allen Drury
The Theme Is Freedom by M. Stanton Evans
Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman
Conscience of a Conservative by Barry Goldwater
The Road To Serfdom by F. A. Hayek Economics In One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt Modern Times by Paul Johnson
The Conservative Mind by Russell Kirk
The Rise of Radicalism by Eugene Methvin
In Defense of Freedom by Frank Meyer
What Is Conservatism? by Frank Meyer
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
The Fatal Conceit by F. A. Hayek
Plunkitt of Tammany Hall by William Riordan
Knowledge and Decisions by Thomas Sowell
The New Right; We're Ready To Lead by Richard Viguerie
Ideas Have Consequences by Richard Weaver
Two out of 25 is not good. Any other confessions?
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