First off, you are not stupid. Unless you are…heh

That being said…

Depending on your point of view and level of patience with people there is a good long disagreement going on in another thread from one on of our brothers either looking for an easy fix, trying to save time, doesn't want to put in the work, or just doesn’t understand and is looking for help regarding the book When I Say No I Feel Guilty.

Most newspaper articles, or editorials are written at about an eighth grade level. Take George Will, loves to hear himself think, uses words, gets a bit windy but still has to keep it readable 7th-8th grade. His editors dumb it down for him I'm sure.

Any article in USA today; probably around 4th - 5th grade level. Anything in GQ or People, Us, Cosmo 2nd - 5th depending on their target because lets face it, if you’re reading People you’re not in it to get anything to add value to your life. I picked up a Maxim once while waiting in the grocery line and was appalled.

So this is what people are used to. Then when someone picks up a very dry academic, analytical book such as WISNIFG and they have no experience with it, they’re lost. They don’t know how. This book is written at probably 11th to 12th grade reading comprehension. This is college level text book writing.

Here is a couple of contrasting examples for you to illustrate:

From the Intro to Democracy in America, Alexis De Tocqueville

In the eleven years that separated the Declaration of the Independence of the United States from the completion of that act in the ordination of our written Constitution, the great minds of America were bent upon the study of the principles of government that were essential to the preservation of the liberties which had been won at great cost and with heroic labors and sacrifices. Their studies were conducted in view of the imperfections that experience had developed in the government of the Confederation, and they were, therefore, practical and thorough.

When the Constitution was thus perfected and established, a new form of government was created, but it was neither speculative nor experimental as to the principles on which it was based. If they were true principles, as they were, the government founded upon them was destined to a life and an influence that would continue while the liberties it was intended to preserve should be valued by the human family. Those liberties had been wrung from reluctant monarchs in many contests, in many countries, and were grouped into creeds and established in ordinances sealed with blood, in many great struggles of the people. They were not new to the people. They were consecrated theories, but no government had been previously established for the great purpose of their preservation and enforcement. That which was experimental in our plan of government was the question whether democratic rule could be so organized and conducted that it would not degenerate into license and result in the tyranny of absolutism, without saving to the people the power so often found necessary of repressing or destroying their enemy, when he was found in the person of a single despot.

That is a grade level of 12. That's just the first two paragraphs of the introduction.

From Maxim Magazine on T-Shirts

When you want a well-made suit you go to the Italians and when they wanted a well made-shirt, Alternative went to Peru. “Pima cotton is made in Peru,” Samuels explained. “We think that they really know the most about how to handle the fabric so we make our shirts there. That of course plays into the price as well. Of course Samuels isn’t just buying premium priced res with no abandon.  The merchant does have a rule of thumb for when designs skew too expensive. “Once you get over about $60 you’re paying for the brand in my opinion rather than the quality. James Perse makes a great t-shirt but when you start selling them for $84 bucks, you can get the same shirt at a different brand for around $60.”

5th Grade level here (on the bubble to 6th). Easy to understand, gets right to the point. This is a magazine targeted to adult males.

Some next level shit just for fun, Anthropoligist Pierre Bourdieu:

Chapter 2: Structures and the habitus A false dilemma: mechanism and finalism The structures constitutive of a particular type of environment (e.g. the material conditions of existence characteristic of a class condition) produce habitus, systems of durable, transposable dispositions, structured structures predisposed to function as structuring structures, that is, as principles of the generation and structuring of practices and representations which was be objectively “regulated” and “regular” without in any way being the product of obedience of rules, objectively adapted to their goals without presupposing a conscious aiming at ends or an express mastery of the operations necessary to attain them, and, being all this, collectively orchestrated without being the product of orchestrating action of a conductor (Outline of a Theory of Practice, Pierre Bourdieu, p. 72).

SHRUG fuck if know what he just said. If you were to take that paragraph and reword it to a 6th level understanding it would take pages.

Your best approach when faced with a difficult text is this;

  • Identify the main idea of what it is you're reading. Take it paragraph by paragraph, if necessary sentence by sentence.

  • Annotate if you have a paperback with a pencil. iBook and Kindle have tools for that. Highlight unknown words and look them up. Not knowing what a word means impedes your understanding.

  • Paraphrase, summarize.

Using that approach will give you a few skills. The ability to get a deeper comprehension of what it is you're reading enough to establish a basic argument with it. The ability to make connections to the text. Your reading stamina, (if you got this far in to my post you have it) that ability to keep reading even when it's difficult.

What I'm trying to get at is this. As men, we're pretty goddamn smart. You can get this. Through struggle you become stronger.

Challenge yourself.