The Great Books Show: John Steinbeck's The Winter of Our Discontent

The Great Books Show discussions are loosely based on the Great Books Foundation’s guidelines. This discussion is on The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck

[@Chesbay53]

Excellent, thank you.

[@townbythetown]

Thankful for this! Just finished this book, loved it, but i've got no one to discuss it with. This video is at least a close second.

[@irishDJRB]

I think the woman is the smartest in the group with so many great points & I feel like the men know this consistently questioning her remarks with “probably” and changing the subjects. She caught on to many observations that even I missed. In any regard, I appreciate this convo.

[@annaershis3894]

Right!!! She is brilliant

[@chewy1684]

I had to chose a book to do a book report on when I was at school, and I chose this book at absolute random from the school library and I'm so glad I did, I've read it multiple times since, such a good book!

[@chesterarthur2206]

Love the video! Bring these back, please!!

[@jeffsmith1798]

The two most influential works of many great American novelists (including Steinbeck of course) are the Bible and the works of Shakespeare.

[@CharlotteFairchild]

Grocery stores and the USDA weighs food for fairness, otherwise no one would get fair food.

[@mukiwabanda2794]

So how do people get fair food in the rest of the world? Or do you think if you take away regulatory government bodies humanity will stop making and selling food?

[@Caperhere]

If he had attempted to rob the bank, he would have been caught . He didn’t know about the alarm devices.

[@backspace7124]

The most successful businesses have to be honest? Not sure how anyone can say that with a straight face. There are always exceptions, but for the most part, you absolutely need to let go of some of your morals to be financially successful in this world. Even those who provide the most harmless, beneficial service or product must deny it to those that need it most and can't afford it. We can kid ourselves all we want that we're not responsible for the degradation of character we allow in ourselves in order to "succeed", but there's no way to go down this road without "letting the light go out". At the same time, with society set up to punish integrity while rewarding cheating, lying, etc., we see why is was easy for Hawley to half-believe what he was telling himself. But he knew, in the end, what he'd done.

[@mukiwabanda2794]

It's immoral to deny a product or service to someone who can't afford it? Then we're all immoral every moment of every day. Every time I buy a sandwich and don't immediately give it to a bum on the street I'm immoral. By that narrow understanding of morality all our businesses would close, all our possessions would disappear, and we'd all starve to death inside of 3 months. But hey at least we wouldn't be immoral! The point about honest business is no business can succeed if it doesn't have a higher level of honesty than dishonesty. Even organized crime. A cocaine dealer who doesn't at the very least pay his supplier and deliver actual cocaine to his consumer will never be rich. A malicious casino operator who doesn't at the very least pay out winnings will never be rich. Even Trump himself at the very least had to provide the products and services as described to his customers in honest fashion before he had any chance of wealth. Sure lots of dishonesty occurs but if you think Trump could just have lied to investors and banks and never paid his employees and given his customers crap after taking their money and still be rich by merit of sheerly being an asshole, you're mistaken. I'm sorry but which part of society is set up to reward liars? You think customers will reward a company that lies about what they're selling? Do you not know how many lawsuits occur and are won against dishonest traders? Seems society is set up to reward honesty, not disonesty. Unless you personally like giving your money to people who lie to you.

[@danejurus69]

Doesn't have to be this way just because it is this way.

[@tylereston5264]

Hello, I cannot find this show anywhere online and the only “great books” I am able to find is one with Donald Southerland. Is there anyway someone can give me a link for further episodes?

[@tylereston5264]

Wait, is this content made for the actual channel? If so fantastic work I’m really trying to find more of it. Watched this just after I read Winter and it was wonderfully done. Very thought provoking

[@Caperhere]

I felt the book was a commentary on the direction US culture was heading. Baker ratted out the Republicans because he wanted a change of government to enable progress ( the airport and following business).

[@Caperhere]

Privateers. Eth just beat them at their own game. I think alll businesses are greedy by nature. Between his children, he believed in the wrong one. She hinted about what her brother had done, and sent the postcard to try to protect him. The boy was lazy, unwilling to work for a living. His personality didn’t seem to fit the historical ethics of the family. I just read the book, hope it’s ok to make comments.

[@mandarin7702]

I think Steinbeck just wanted to show us that you shouldn't ignore you're persona's degradation in order to gain some material stuff. But on the other hand he shows us that 90 precent of successfull people are gaining success with doing immoral suff, wich makes ethan to think that he is capable of doing "same" awful things.

[@Caperhere]

Martha Stewart made the mistake of breaking into a male dominated business model.

[@danejurus69]

My favorite novel of all time. Thank you for discussing it.

[@dijonstreak]

talk about ICE Skating...just sifted right through the book in seconds flat...NO substance whatsoever !!! shame ful dispkay of literary criticism...