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PaperclipPerfector  20hr ago (text post)   663 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 16, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

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So, what are you reading?

I've finished Al-Ghazali's Prophetic Ethics, the rather slim 20th volume of his Revival of the Religious Sciences. Most of it is a recounting of Hadith, and somewhat threadbare, since the previous 9 books had apparently dealt with the issues presented in detail. The best parts are all when Al-Ghazali speaks in his own voice, which happens rarely near the end. I suspect I'll be pouring over this one occasionally neverthless, looking for lessons to be drawn from its structure and focus.

Perdido Street Station and I'm about to drop it 120 pages in unless someone convinces me not to

It's full of good fantasy/sci-fi ideas and even though it's a bit ra-ra-workers-of-the-world-unite, it's well-presented/justified. You can skip everything else by that (obnoxious commie) author, but PSS is worth having read.

What I try to do these days when judging the worldview or ideology of a story is, rather than evaluating it on how much I agree with that ideology or not, I evaluate on how good a case the story makes for its ideology in the context of its own world.

ra-ra-workers-of-the-world-unite

What would be the opposite of this?

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