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Originally Posted by Kindleing
The problem I see is that authors have agendas also; some are extreme and sometimes representations aren't necessarily accurate or complete. An author's personal biases needs to be taken into account, and I don't know how to do that without knowing more about an author's background than I usually do.
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Sure they do, and this includes the ones we feel comfortable reading. So that's a given. But picking up the unfamiliar and possibly uncomfortable representation can help raise our awareness of other modes of thought - that they exist as something real and heartfelt. And if you doubt something you've read, research and read some more.
From C.S.Lewis -
An Experiment in Criticism (1961).
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My own eyes are not enough for me, I will see through those of others. Reality, even seen through the eyes of many, is not enough. I will see what others have invented. Even the eyes of all humanity are not enough. I regret that the brutes connot write books. Very gladly would I learn what face things present to a mouse or a bee; more gladly still would I perceive the olfactory world charged with all the information and emotion it carries for a dog. Literary experience heals the wound, without undermining the privilege, of individuality... in reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself.
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Here was an author whose views on many subjects do not correspond with mine, and yet I can find common ground in his writings, a way to try and see the world as he sees it, at least for a short time.