Reading is revolutionary. We act like that’s laughable. But if you think about it historically — about how carefully literacy was preserved, for so much of human history, for the privileged few, about societies that have made literacy inaccessible or even illegal for certain groups, about how threatening literacy must be to inspire such punitive control, and if you think, too, about how the enlightenment of the world, to the extent that we have achieved it, has depended upon widespread literacy … it’s not laughable at all.
I am one of those people that didn’t read for years. I think what deters people from reading is a perceived density of printed text. The fear that you would have to dig for information instead of having them served on a silver platter. That’s why I wouldn’t encourage people to read for knowledge, but rather for pleasure. I started with reading comicses about princess. Then romantasy for dirty minds. Now I am thinking of picking up Jane Eyre. None of these books are academic but you learn something about the nature of men from fantasy just the same.
Reading is necessary, but not sufficient for creating a good society. Many years ago I read some studies of Bulgaria after its liberation from the Turks in the 1880s. As part of its national revival program the Bulgarian government created a network of reading rooms around the country that were designed partly as libraries and partly to teach people to read. They were fabulously successful in that they dramatically raised the rates of literacy. However, they also created a class of educated people without real-world skills or productive jobs. To keep these people peaceful and occupied, the government then created a large program of bureaucratic jobs. The Bulgarian economy never recovered.
In the 1990s, I happened to visit Bulgaria and was able to meet with some government officials. One mentioned that the Bulgarian military had 3000 colonels, many more than needed. When I objected to this waste, he replied, "We don't pay them much and we know where they are."
Cultures are destroyed not by burning books but by people no longer reading them. I’ve been reading since before I started kindergarten and it helped me a lot throughout school. I actually liked to learn and I never had to study for my tests. This is the worst most boring dystopia ever! Where is all the cool tech!? lol
Reading is revolutionary. We act like that’s laughable. But if you think about it historically — about how carefully literacy was preserved, for so much of human history, for the privileged few, about societies that have made literacy inaccessible or even illegal for certain groups, about how threatening literacy must be to inspire such punitive control, and if you think, too, about how the enlightenment of the world, to the extent that we have achieved it, has depended upon widespread literacy … it’s not laughable at all.
I'm so terribly tired of the ignorance of this age. I don't want to exist in a world without books or a culture that thinks reading is useless. https://open.substack.com/pub/katcoffin/p/the-revolution-will-be-read?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
I am one of those people that didn’t read for years. I think what deters people from reading is a perceived density of printed text. The fear that you would have to dig for information instead of having them served on a silver platter. That’s why I wouldn’t encourage people to read for knowledge, but rather for pleasure. I started with reading comicses about princess. Then romantasy for dirty minds. Now I am thinking of picking up Jane Eyre. None of these books are academic but you learn something about the nature of men from fantasy just the same.
Reading is necessary, but not sufficient for creating a good society. Many years ago I read some studies of Bulgaria after its liberation from the Turks in the 1880s. As part of its national revival program the Bulgarian government created a network of reading rooms around the country that were designed partly as libraries and partly to teach people to read. They were fabulously successful in that they dramatically raised the rates of literacy. However, they also created a class of educated people without real-world skills or productive jobs. To keep these people peaceful and occupied, the government then created a large program of bureaucratic jobs. The Bulgarian economy never recovered.
In the 1990s, I happened to visit Bulgaria and was able to meet with some government officials. One mentioned that the Bulgarian military had 3000 colonels, many more than needed. When I objected to this waste, he replied, "We don't pay them much and we know where they are."
Cultures are destroyed not by burning books but by people no longer reading them. I’ve been reading since before I started kindergarten and it helped me a lot throughout school. I actually liked to learn and I never had to study for my tests. This is the worst most boring dystopia ever! Where is all the cool tech!? lol
I so agree. Fingers crossed we can turn this ship around! Here are my thoughts about studying literature. https://open.substack.com/pub/laurakbray/p/literature-can-save-us?r=1dwjxz&utm_medium=ios&shareImageVariant=overlay
It is encouraging to read the responses to that Gun Lover fool's post. He was pretty severely taken to task.