For progress to be by accumulation and not random walk, read great books (2010)
I've had multiple arguments with people recently in which people have recommended <i>not</i> reading classic books on the grounds that the author held "toxic" views --- even when the work being recommended had nothing to do with these views, when the views were very common at the time (e.g., imperialism can be good), or when, upon closer inspection, the author didn't even hold these views at all, and just "lived in a structure that profited from them".<p>This anti-classics argument is distressingly common and it's impoverishing us intellectually. This style of argumentation is a lazy and formulaic way of dismissing practically any greater thinker. It's petty and shortsighted to cast aspersions over useful and influential work on the grounds of insufficient wokeness on the part of the dead.