Reading is a Vice (msn.com) 124
The International Publishers Association spent the past year promoting the slogan "Democracy depends on reading," but Atlantic senior editor Adam Kirsch argues that this utilitarian pitch fundamentally misunderstands why people become readers in the first place.
The most recent Survey of Public Participation in the Arts found that less than half of Americans read a single book in 2022, and only 38% read a novel or short story. A University of Florida and University College London study found daily reading for pleasure fell 3% annually from 2003 to 2023. Among 13-year-olds, just 14% read for fun almost every day in 2023, down from 27% a decade earlier.
Kirsch says to stop treating reading as civic medicine. "It would be better to describe reading not as a public duty but as a private pleasure, sometimes even a vice," he writes. When literature was considered transgressive, moralists couldn't stop people from buying dangerous books. Now that books are deemed virtuous, nobody picks them up. He points to Don Quixote and Madame Bovary -- novels whose protagonists are ruined by their reading habits. Great writers, he notes, never idealized literature the way educators do. The pitch to young readers should emphasize staying up late reading under the covers by flashlight, hoping nobody finds out.
The most recent Survey of Public Participation in the Arts found that less than half of Americans read a single book in 2022, and only 38% read a novel or short story. A University of Florida and University College London study found daily reading for pleasure fell 3% annually from 2003 to 2023. Among 13-year-olds, just 14% read for fun almost every day in 2023, down from 27% a decade earlier.
Kirsch says to stop treating reading as civic medicine. "It would be better to describe reading not as a public duty but as a private pleasure, sometimes even a vice," he writes. When literature was considered transgressive, moralists couldn't stop people from buying dangerous books. Now that books are deemed virtuous, nobody picks them up. He points to Don Quixote and Madame Bovary -- novels whose protagonists are ruined by their reading habits. Great writers, he notes, never idealized literature the way educators do. The pitch to young readers should emphasize staying up late reading under the covers by flashlight, hoping nobody finds out.
Discrimination (Score:5, Insightful)
I dislike how most places call out only books as reading. I am voracious reader, but never read books or short stories or poems or any of that. I read scientific docs, technical docs, how to's. I try to learn all the time, usually by reading, but I just don't have care to read books. I even despise training and instructional material in video format. Write it down and I'll read it.
Re:Discrimination (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree that you don't have to read "literature". When my youngest daughter was little, she read the most absolutely formulaic and garbage series for kids, but I said "Well, at least she's reading."
As she grew older, she became more discriminating and still loves to read and will graduate as a teacher soon.
I do think that you miss out if you only read one genre or type of writing, though. Trying something outside what you normally read can open you up to great new experiences. (It can also be a dreadful bore... but it's worth the gamble, IMO.)
Re:Discrimination (Score:5, Interesting)
When I was young I read because books were my only escape. If born today I fear I would have vanished into video games, perhaps never to resurface and never even leaving my parent's basement...
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Magazines and blogs are very recent human inventions, it's an insult to suggest that reading magazines is not reading because they aren't books. This ignorance reminds me of a Greek literature prof I had back in college (insisted that you weren't a thinker if you weren't good at appreciating greek literature).
You are what you practice to be, if you want to be more diverse then engage in greater diversity. Reading is part of that.
Is reading a Calculus textbook a "private pleasure" or is it simply not readi
Re:Discrimination (Score:5, Insightful)
Look at it this way. Reading literature, books, short stories, and so on is basically akin to reading documentation... about people. Hopes, dreams, aspirations, failures... all that and more.
To quote DPS, "We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for."
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Engineering is poetry
Well, maybe by Vogon Standards.
Technical manuals don't teach critical thinking (Score:5, Interesting)
That's the reason reading fiction and historical literature is important. You need things that have gray areas.
Now there are technical documents in scientific papers that are in the gray area however they are usually extremely advanced. That's because we've been doing science pretty seriously for over a hundred years now and the low hanging fruit is well understood. That means that if you're just consuming scientific literature and how to books then those are going to be basically regurgitating already known and well understood topics. You're not going to get into the gray area in science until you're pushing at least a master's degree. At that point yeah you're actually arguing over new discoveries. But again the problem is your average citizen is never going to get to that point. We just don't have that many people who get to be scientists.
Re:Technical manuals don't teach critical thinking (Score:5, Interesting)
That's the problem. You need the humanities to teach critical thinking because you need something that has room for interpretation and room to be wrong. If you're reading technical manuals as your primary source of reading then you're just soaking up facts and that's not going to help you learn to think critically. If you happen to already be able to think critically that's fine but we're talking about the millions and millions of Americans who very very clearly are incapable of it.
Humanities professors and others have made this claim, but it doesn't match my experience. Now I started out as a double major, BA history & math. I dropped history, because it was NOT about 'critical thinking' but rather about 'parroting what the professor thought.' In one particularly notable example, I started with a well accepted historical hypothesis (which I documented through citations) and then reasoned about the consequences. That paper was marked poorly because the prof didn't agree with the hypothesis, with little about my subsequent reasoning. The nice thing about math was you both knew when you were right or wrong. I cannot credit my history courses (both before and after dropping the major) as teaching much about critical thinking; the Logic course I took was better at that, as was the Analysis of Algorithm computer science course. Some of the history courses did teach me about constructing connection chains, about properly citing sources, and maybe about weighing the value of sources, but that's an enabler of 'critical thinking,' not the end-state. Mebbe I just had lousy history profs.
I still read A LOT of history (and read very little technical stuff since I retired.) What I've learned is in part how much I have to read to be able to actually conduct 'critical thinking'. After reading maybe 15 books on the time of Augustus, I can finally critically read Syme's "The Roman Revolution," and understand both its accomplishment sand its limitations. And on a couple of topics, I know the literature well enough to say "Huh, he says X but another guy says Y. Why do they disagree?" On those topics, I'll actually look at the references first when I pick up a new book, to make sure the author has done due diligence across the set of sources.
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You know, there's also a huge selection of books called "non-fiction" which you can also read. They cover a variety of topics and can present your technical material in new an interesting ways.
So branch out and look around the library because there are a lot of books that are not necessarily "literature" (face it, the vast majority of people who read books read pulp - it's just like the vast majority of money in movies is blockbusters).
Sometimes it can be interesting background, like learning how WiFi start
Whatever floats your boat? Me? Reading to think (Score:2)
Not disliking your FP, but rejecting your Subject. Care to explain? It is a meaningful word, but I don't get the link with your content as FPed.
On the story, I was just thinking about the topic in terms of individual motivations. Some people are primarily motivated by food and they mostly love to eat, possibly extended to cooking. Some people are mostly into alcohol (or other drugs), and I think most of us would concur with the "vice" label fits well there. Some people are into sex, which can go different w
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I don't like to read a lot, but I do read web pages like /., IRC, newsgroups, forums, messages, emails, etc. :P
Re:Discrimination (Score:4, Funny)
Says someone so functionally illiterate he fails to understand a very clear post. "Literature" in this context means "fiction", otherwise it would not be describes as "private pleasure". You do not have to read fiction in order to read to to be literate.
Re: Discrimination (Score:4, Funny)
He's a functional illiterate because he enjoys reading things you would find confusing?
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No, no, no, no, no: tough kids, sissy kids, kids who climb on rocks; fat kids, skinny kids, even kids with chicken pox...
The Dissaperance of Literary Men (Score:2)
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/1... [nytimes.com]
The Disappearance of Literary Men Should Worry Everyone
New York Times - Dec 7, 2024
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The gist of the article is that there are less male authors and the majority of the publishing industry is women which is driving male authors and readers away.
- The comments on https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
- Podcast examining this https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]\
Even when the industry is dominated by women, it's still reported as somehow unfair or discriminatory:
https://www.thebooksel [thebookseller.com]
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Oh boo fucking hoo. Don't be such a little bitch, read some women authors. Atwood and Jemison and Cherryh have valuable lessons to teach you. Publishing has also been male dominated for literally all of history so this also represents a long overdue swing towards equality, not away from it. You're a little crybaby.
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I'm not trying to keep track, I'm not even making a point to read women authors, but I've also been reading them all my life and hope to continue. I find it encouraging as well that I've never made it a point, yet some of my favorite authors are women. Not about what it says about me, but rather about them — that they are every bit as capable of being great authors.
I used to think I was going to track a bunch of stuff about me and refer back to it, but it turned out to be a pain and not actually all t
1970s science fiction and fantasy (Score:2)
Adding in that there was a large cross-marketing and promotion of women authors in 1970s science fiction and fantasy to try to open women readers towards that genre.
Been tried before: There were country music stars that did Beatles covers in the 1960s including Beetles haircut wigs, and also the Rolling Stones included 1 country song (more or less country) on most of their albums.
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Let's see ... your post has no capitalization, exhibits an inability to punctuate properly, and exposes your complete lack of knowledge as to the definition of the word "illiterate." Clearly you fall into the category of "most people" to which you are referring.
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Damn, you're getting owned by your own stupidity in these comments.
I don't understand people who don't enjoy reading (Score:5, Interesting)
For me, reading for pleasure is one of the best things in life. I live an 8-minute walk from a great public library and I borrow on average about 100 books per year and I read most of them (give up on maybe 5 or 6 a year.)
Reading doesn't hurt my eyes or give me a headache the way sitting in front of a device or TV does. I love just going to random shelves in the library and trying new things; I've discovered many great authors and have read fantastic nonfiction books about subjects that I had no idea were so interesting. And it's all free, or at least already included in my property taxes.
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I used to read about as much too and still enjoy it, but the past two or three years I felt too tired to read and mostly watched anime. I hope this year will be better.
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Try audio books.
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No thanks. Can't stand them.
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Try TTS then. I "read" through my ears at 300-500 words per second, depending on my mood and activities, including falling asleep to books.
Re:I don't understand people who don't enjoy readi (Score:4, Insightful)
what does that mean? also what is TTS?
lets say 500 words/second, therefore, 60 x 500 words/minute = 30,000 words/minute, so you can ear read an average book in 3 minutes?
Yeah, I can't follow that. what?
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I think they mean 500 words per minute, which is a fast but still comprehensible speed.
TTS is text-to-speech, the automatic conversion of text into voice. Essentially having the computer read to you.
Not sure how that's better than audio books though.
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Yes, meant minute. Per second is 5+.
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Perhaps, unlike the OP, math wasn't his strong point?
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I used to read about as much too and still enjoy it, but the past two or three years I felt too tired to read and mostly watched anime.
But at least you're still reading the subtitles...
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Yep, and picking up bits and pieces of Japanese along the way, so there is an upside too.
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For me, reading for pleasure is one of the best things in life. I live an 8-minute walk from a great public library and I borrow on average about 100 books per year and I read most of them (give up on maybe 5 or 6 a year.)
That's fantastic, I wish I had the time, I only get through about 18-30 a year reading over breakfast, which is mostly studying. My rate climbs when I'm on vacation which is when I have a chance to read some Sci Fi for pleasure, so you're really living a readers dream there.
Reading doesn't hurt my eyes or give me a headache the way sitting in front of a device or TV does.
Yes - I get lower levels of fatigue with paper as well. I can't remember where I read the study on retention rates where plain old paper books still rule around 80-90%, screens are around 25-30%. Apparently it's due to the amount of
Reading for dummies. (Score:2, Funny)
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Step 1: Before starting kindergarten have someone read a bunch of books to you, and keep going for another year or two after that.
Step 2: Read lots of books with someone, asking them for help when needed.
Step 3: ???
Step 4: PROFIT!
All kidding aside, if your parents, big brother or sister, or other person read lots of age-level-or-slightly-above books to you before starting kindergarten you are much more likely to be reading on grade level by 4th grade than if you don't.
Re: Reading for dummies. (Score:2)
Amen to this. My parents were both pretty worthless in most ways but my mother did help instill me with the urge to read early, and that's served me well all my life. I was initially interested in learning to read because of street signs. I could read the paper by the time I was three...
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urge to read early, by the time I was three...
Similar age to me. I started on comic books, a stack as big as I was, then sci fi books, then electronics, then computing which made me the geek I am today!
Nonsense (Score:5, Informative)
It would be better to describe reading not as a public duty but as a private pleasure, sometimes even a vice,
Horsecrap. Reading makes you a better writer. If you need to communicate with other humans, the more you read, the better you are at communicating with them. In general of course. If you read garbage then that's what you are learning from.
https://www.masterclass.com/ar... [masterclass.com]
It can be a vice (Score:2)
Educators (Score:5, Insightful)
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I suffered through Great Expectations in college. I say "suffered" because feeling Pip's unrequited love and watching Pip's moral downfall were both heart-wrenchingly painful.
That said, it's a horrible book for high-schoolers.
That said, I bet you still love to read, and that overly-mature book did not ruin your love. It just made you understand it better.
Kids have learned to hate reading for the past 20 years or so, ever since No Child Left Behind turned reading instruction into test preparation. Read th
Re: Educators (Score:2)
I did very much enjoy The Poisonwood Bible though. Finished that well before the class.
Re: Educators (Score:5, Interesting)
The Catcher in the Rye is a teenager complaining. Holden Caulfield is judgmental, repetitive, moody, obsessed with “phonies”, and often insufferable. If you read it as a plot novel, it feels thin. If you read it at school, when teachers insist it’s “important”, it can feel like being trapped in someone else’s sulk.
What that reading misses is that Holden isn’t just whining, he’s unraveling. The book is one long nervous breakdown told in real time. His sarcasm, fixation on hypocrisy, and looping thoughts are coping mechanisms for grief and trauma, especially the death of his younger brother Allie. He is depressed, dissociating, and terrified of adulthood because adulthood looks like betrayal and loss.
The title gives the game away. Holden fantasises about being the “catcher in the rye”, saving children from falling off a cliff into adulthood. That’s not arrogance, it’s panic. He wants to freeze innocence because he can’t survive more loss.
Adults who reread it often flip. As a teenager, Holden sounds like you. As an adult, he sounds like a kid in serious trouble that nobody is helping. The book endures not because he’s right about the world, but because Salinger nailed the voice of a mind cracking under pressure.
So yes, it’s a teen complaining. It’s also a remarkably precise portrait of grief, depression and alienation, disguised as complaining because that’s how those things sound from the inside.
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I read it as an adult and didn't like it at all. I saw the unraveling and just didn't enjoy it. I dont enjoy books about suffering.
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Yeah, I'm not a fan at all of Catcher in the Rye. I don't really see its appeal.
Haven't read Poisonwood yet.
The good thing is, being exposed means you might find something you love.
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I remember suffering through Great Expectations in High School. It is a great book, but it says nothing to a modern teenager. If you want people to read books, you need to give them material that is relevant to their lives, not great literature.
It's not an education if you only assign stuff "relevant to their lives" (which is a crapshoot decision in any case; what books are really going be relevant to modern teenagers?). Part of what you're supposed to be getting in school is knowledge of the foundations of your civilization, which is why colleges have a Great Books program in the first place. High Schools typically don't burden students with all that many difficult old books anyway. I had to suffer through Wuthering Heights but I also got to disc
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I think it's important for kids to read material that's relevant to their lives and material that is not relevant to their lives. I remember reading "The Tempest" in high school. It's not regarded as one of Shakespeare's best, but I absolutely loved it. It was completely irrelevant to my life, but was a wonderful fantastic tale.
I generally didn't hate any of the books we had to read in school with only one exception: Lord of the Rings. I just could not get into that book and it was a real chore to fin
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You'll want to constrain the selection lest they pick something like Morning Glory Milking Farm.
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We read The Stone Angel in Grade 11 or 12. It had some pretty steamy descriptions of sex in it.
In 1987, a bunch of parents complained about it to a school board in Western Canada, but the board refused to remove it, which was the only correct decision. AFAIK, it's still taught in high school.
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Some choice, sure, but I'd constrain it to a choice amongst a few books. Otherwise, everyone might pick a different book and it'd be hell for the teacher to grade their work because the teacher would have had to read all those books too.
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I agree that sometimes people go looking for deep meaning where there isn't any. But in order to grade a review of a book, the teacher does have to have read it. Otherwise, the student could make things up and the teacher wouldn't know any better.
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Great, and the kids will have generated their reports with AI too! We get to burn energy and have no learning happen; win-win!
Nonsense (Score:2)
My kids (Score:3)
My 3 now adult kids devour novels.
We read them books every night from very young, so they picked up reading themselves by about 5.
Yes, sample size of one family, but I think parents are important to help establish reading.
Twilight Zone already did this episode (Score:4, Informative)
The Obsolete Man [wikipedia.org].
Reading is of no use since the state has eliminated books.
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They also did this (perhaps more on topic) episode: Time Enough at Last [wikipedia.org] which, like "The Obsolete Man," starred Burgess Meredith.
I just saw it again the other day. I had forgotten how utterly mean his wife was -- possibly worse than the totalitarians in the other episode!
The Atlantic has been getting weirder (Score:2)
It's currently the best source of journalism and opinion, but they have posted quite a few odd articles recently. Today I read most of a long one about a newer translation of Dante's Inferno and another about obsession with chatbots.
National Review is also interesting. They are so stupidly wrong about 80% of the time, reasonable about 15% of the time, and perfectly accurate when few else are about 5% of the time. It's useful for understanding crazy world views but also finding blind spots.
Re: The Atlantic has been getting weirder (Score:2)
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The Atlantic publishes website articles daily. The New Yorker is more about the arts. Does anybody buy physical magazines anymore?
Re: The Atlantic has been getting weirder (Score:2)
It's fine to disagree, just don't be so dismissive.
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I preferred Inferno by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle.
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Niven and Pournelle were amusing to me as a teenager. Not so much as an adult.
yeah (Score:2)
Partly, i got more aphantasia as i got older. And compared to the 90's tv/movie media, modern tv/movie adaptations are better than their books, with more vivid CGI etc than my mind can generate, vs, in the 90's cgi was shit and my mind could visualize much nicer scenes.
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I had no idea aphantasia was something that could come later in life. I've had it since birth! But it never prevented me from enjoying a good book :) I just tend to skip descriptions as they make little sense to me, but otherwise I love stories, character interactions, etc.
Now that 1984 has come to pass... (Score:2)
we leave Orwell and continue to the works to Bradbury
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aggghh. ...OF... Bradbury
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aggghh. ...OF... Bradbury
Hilarious that you grammar policed yourself after the Bradbury reference. PKD is a great author too.
Can't get into most modern books (Score:4, Interesting)
I used to read a fair amount of books when I was younger. Wide variety of subjects from fiction, science fiction, history and a few biography types. I still have boxes of books I've read in storage. Many others I've redonated to a library for them to sell.
However, within the last decade I haven't bought many books compared to the past. The ones I have bought are mostly history related with only a handful of fiction/science-fiction. When I pick up a new book (new to me) I go to page 100 and start reading. If the story at that point doesn't interest me I put it back. I just can't get into what people consider good sci-fi such as The Expanse series. And forget about the Three Body Problem.
The last books of such type I remember purchasing were Darwin's Radio and Darwin's Children by Greg Baer. At the same time, I can't get into his other works.
I'm sure this has to do with my tastes changing, but considering the number of books out there and how often I'm looking, one would think I would be able to find more.
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I just can't get into what people consider good sci-fi such as The Expanse series. And forget about the Three Body Problem.
I didn't know "The Expanse" was based on books, however I can say the TBP books are excellent. Great to see the Chinese producing Sci Fi that (mostly) transcends borders.
The last books of such type I remember purchasing were Darwin's Radio and Darwin's Children by Greg Baer. At the same time, I can't get into his other works.
Yeah - great books there 52/2. Bear is certainly one of the greats R.I.P, up there with Clarke. One book Bear wrote "City at the end of Time" seemed to be a homage to Clarke's "City and the Stars" which was one of my favorites.
Then there were the Killer B's (Brin, Bear and Benford) who I think expanded Asimov's Foundation - not sure i
Agree completely (Score:2)
We'll be sending Guy Montag over to your house to correct your crimethink. (Whoops! Wrong book.)
Or just maybe... (Score:2)
Much better than TV (Score:2)
Reading requires effort but the rewards are so much greater because books run on the most powerful rendering engine that's ever existed - imagination.
True (Score:2)
It's a vice. And educational, entertaining, an escape from reality. :-p), before that in IT.
I spend most free time as a kid with either books or Lego, now I spend most time writing fiction and programming (in C
One is either attracted to reading and the kind of imagination it involves, or not. I always thought it meant to be in a kind of niche between the various kinds of media available.
Shoot up with Knowledge (Score:2)
Because Reverse Always works (Score:2)
What ever you do, please don't eat my broccoli. You can't have it, it's mine. If you buy me ice cream, I will let you do the laundry.
If you want people to read books, you need to introduce them to the good stuff, when they are young.
And when some censoring nut job tries to say ANYTHING, arrest them for child abuse. They are the problem, not the solution.
Here are the books I remember:
Where the Wild Things are
Winnie the Pooh
Harry Potter
A Wrinkle in Time
The Chronicles of Narnia
Charlie and the Chocolate Fact
Eating healthy is also a vice (Score:2)
Hey, the more self-conscious you are, the better. At least that's what some AI probably spewed.
Did you know
Stop reading ... (Score:3)
Still reading (Score:2)
I am past 60 now, and still (!) reading a lot. When moving to a smaller apartment, I got rid of most of my books, only keeping those that I felt I would want to read again. These days I get almost all of my books from the local library. If I have read a book twice, and think I might read it twice again, I consider buying a copy. But OK, I live in Copenhagen, where we have a great public library system, and the university libraries are available
Oh my (Score:2)
I read a book (or 2) a shift for 40 years, because I had a job where I 'waited' mostly for something to happen for me to fix.
After retirement, I doubled the reading for 14 years now. :-)
I'm on my 7th or 8th Kindle and I donated about 6000 books to the local library as soon as I got my first one.
And I got a free room after that.
The "performative reading" issue (Score:2)
Is it people think reading is a vice due to the unfortunate "performative reading" issue, which is described by Google Gemini AI (of all things!) as:
"The act of reading, especially complex or "literary" books in public or online, primarily to project an image of being intellectual, cultured, or deep, rather than for the genuine enjoyment or absorption of the text."
I really wonder why people say if they see someone in public reading a real book on Kindle reader or the Kindle app on their cell phone or small
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I really wonder why people say if they see someone in public reading a real book
I'm usually too engrossed to care, however I have had a few people come up to me and comment that I was actually reading a real book and then asked me about it. So it can oddly be a way to meet people, especially if they've read the book.
From reading under the covers by flashlight (Score:2)
to watching porn by fleshlight.
Wanting to exercise your mind is a "vice" now? (Score:2)
Dark times.
Franz Kafka put it best (Score:2)
"â¦it's good when your conscience receives big wounds, because that makes it more sensitive to every twinge. I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us. If the book weâ(TM)re reading doesnâ(TM)t wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we reading it for? So that it will make us happy, as you write?
Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to.
But we nee
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Memory issues?
Focus issues?
Reading the wrong books?
Try audio books.
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Smartphone brain damage?
(attention span shrinkage is a real problem we all face nowadays... it's so easy to get hooked to our machines.)
Re: I love books.... (Score:2)
I recommend Dungeon Crawler Carl or We Are Legion, We are Bob as good listens.
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I love DCC, but I found Bobiverse uninteresting.
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The problem is that I have to reread a page multiple times because my brain will just go blank part way through reading the page.
It could be you dissociating because of something you are reading, I've had similar experiences. It's worth looking into - you never know what it will uncover for you.
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"Kirsch says to stop treating reading as civic medicine. "It would be better to describe reading not as a public duty but as a private pleasure, sometimes even a vice,""
Well, I guess I'd start with telling him to stop trying to "trick" people - even kids - into doing what he wants?
It's a routine fault of progressives AND evangelical conservatives: this inherent sense of moral certainty, and the instinctive justification that "pretty much anything goes because I'm doing it to HELP you".
Reading (or more specifically, the desire to read, as there are tons of people with impairments that get in the way of literally reading a book) I'd say is symptomatic of intelligence. So what we really want are people who value intelligence, who value reason. Reading will more or less automatically follow.
I'll be honest, I don't think 'reading' alone is inherently magical. Reading the sports page, or some fantasy smut about milking male minotaurs - they may both be enjoyable, but neither is going to make someone the kind of constructive, reasoning citizen we NEED in our Republic.
Well, that any democracy needs, not just ours.
Of course, then we get back to the 'certainty'. Reasoning adults need to be able to hold in their heads a fundamental RESPECT for the other person's ideas. Even if they don't agree.
So here's the funny bit for me. Kirsch suggests that we trick kids into thinking reading is scandalous, a vice. Is that really what he wants? What if they read actually-scandalous texts (according to Kirsch's orthodoxy) like something by Charlie Kirk? The Art of the Deal? Would he be as intrinsically delighted with "people reading" then?
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opps - That's not the comment I wanted to make.
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Let's try that again.
""reading not as a public duty but as a private pleasure, sometimes even a vice,""
Well, I guess I'd start with telling him to stop trying to "trick" people - even kids - into doing what he wants?
Doesn't mean it isn't true or that he's wrong. He's hardly going to trick kids into reading his article, to trick them. I think reading is the vehicle into learning things in your life that unlocks what you'd really love to do.
It's a routine fault of progressives AND evangelical conservatives: this inherent sense of moral certainty, .
It seems that the only two sides of politics that exist is the agonist and the antagonist. Left and Right have become obsolete as a consequence of their absolute polarization.
Reading I'd say is symptomatic of intelligence. So what we really want are people who value intelligence, who value reason. Reading will more or less automatically follow.
Intelligence can manifest in different ways unrelated to reading, math, music, painti