This morning I read an article written by a certain developer praising a certain software engineering book. But there were two problems. While the engineer seemed competent enough, and the book famous enough (it’s like Shakespeare, everyone claims it’s a masteriece but nobody seems to have read or finished it), the book has serious problems and the engineer was unaware that he was unaware of those problems.

This is how ignorance is perpetuated.

For context, the problems highlighted in that ‘masterpiece’ book were pinpointed by someone at least in the same league as the authors of the masterpiece (if not better, but I’m being conservative here.). I remember having read that note somewhere, though I can’t recall where exactly. The other expert who is a real and formidable authority in the field was deriding the author of the masterpiece for misleading readers–whether intentionally or not–and specifically pointing out the issues he found in that book.

Yet, the other expert is not very well-known, at least not at the same level of popularity as the book he was criticizing. At the risk of digressing from the title of this essay, should popularity be a good metric for quality?

It is elementary that popularity is not a reliable metric for quality. A popular book may or may not be objectively good depending on whether it has been understood by the audience, and depending on whether the popularity is objectively genuine.

‘Why did it become popular if it’s not good?’ is, therefore, logically fallacious to ask. But of course, people will still ask it. So we will answer: because of the perpetuation of ignorance: as societies and individuals in them become mentally fractured (their identities break apart), the desire to re-construct identities around something already ‘valid’ intensifies. In other words, people want to praise something just because they want to feel good about themselves, especially when they don’t know what to praise, and more especially so if they don’t feel too good about themselves (but this will be yet another digression!).

Yet, the problem is subtly insidious, as the said engineer is unaware of the problems of the said book, and unaware that he is unaware, and as he is an engineer with real products or software in his list of achievements, it becomes difficult to doubt him especially by those who are some levels below him.

These hordes of greenhorns will then take to reading the said book, and in order to re-build their identities around it, sing its praises even when they have neither truly understood it or discovered its problems, nor when they have been able to persuade themselves to finish it. The engineer I mention already admits he could not go beyond chapter 3, but this did not stop him from praising the book (nevertheless).

Thus, ignorance is perpetuated by people who seem to be (but in truth, are not) qualified enough to discover such an ignorance. Those who look up to these ’experts’ then carry the torch further. The book becomes popular, its problems left undiscovered (unless by chance by a very small number of people who are not famous enough to make it knowable by the majority.).

But if it is any vindication for those of us who see through all that, it is the undeniable fact that despite its popularity and praises, the book does not seem to excite genuine interest in its readers. The kind of boks that do, are not usually likely to be popular because they require a certain level of intelligence and taste to appreciate them, and these qualities are normaly distributed (that is, a great majority of people do not possess the qualities needed to popularize a great book.).

But it is also not so simple and clear-cut as that. To say that all popular books are not good enough is not good enough of a logical argument. There are certainly many books that are of the highest quality and yet, still popular. How do we reconcile these facts?

Well, high-quality books do not have to have been written for an exclusive minority. In fact, I could argue that books of even higher quality have been written such, that they satisfy different readers at their exact levels of comprehension. Those are sublime since they cater to the struggling individual while also offering deeper gems to the discerning intellectual.

This is why the Noble Qur’aan is so popular AND of the Most Sublime quality. Of course, that is to be expected of the Most Grand Author, Allah (ج), who has authored both us, our minds, and the Noble Book to guide us.

Now, at the creature level, there are also books that manage to have a wide and narrow focus at the same time. In the English language, as an example in the context of humanities, books by Samuel Richardson satisfy the criteria: the layperson will gain something and know that it was good, while the intellectual will know what he exactly gained from it.

For instance, ‘Clarissa Harlowe’ seems, on the surface, to be about the so-called wisdom of dealing with people and becoming psychologically wiser after spending sometime in the minds of the characters who are in constant to and fro with each other; yet, and this might vary for another person, I found the book to be a treatise on logic, dressed up in letters. Of course, this also means I must have some knowledge of logic to appreciate my new gains in understanding.

Conversely, many books that are popular but for the wrong reasons, are incomplete, low-quality and full of errors. Their existing popularity ensures the publishing houses continue to ‘satisfy the demand’, while the greenhorn copycat intellectual-wannabe wants to re-build his psychological identity by singing the praises of a popular book, making it even more popular.

Yet, the popular book remains largely unread–while still popular. Intelligence is fairly given to all, and those in the center (the average person) is only so because he has not developed their innate intelligence due to various reasons. But even mediocre minds are minds, and the mind has a superb capacity to sense, at the unconscious level (what was called slicing in Gladwell’s ‘Blink’) the difference between the mediocre and the superior and the sublime.

This is why tomes of Shakespeare are mostly left unread, while people are still fervently reading both the original and the foreign translations of the Mathnavi nearly 1000 years after its publication in classical Persian. Of course, this does not mean they all understand it and its purpose and worth, as exemplified in the incorrect translations and the misinterpretations perpetuated by the ignorant quacks.

For instance, they have made it seem as if ‘Rumi’ is about love (romantic) but actually the author of the Mathnavi uses the word love figuratively in the context of religious jargon representing a sort of higher, pure, and human-element-free love for the Creator Almighty. Yet, try persuading the average pleb who reads translations by the quack Coleman Barks and others of his ilk. Good luck with that.