I agree. One should be able to justify literature (and other arts) without recourse to religious concepts like 'soul' or 'communion,' and treat the matter with less solemnity. Mere liking, however, is also not enough in many contexts. One can legitimately refuse utility assessments, but a lack of clarity won't win over anyone not already persuaded.
what stories would you want to share with your kids even if all your political goals came true and they could mindlessly follow the experts? those are the stories you should assign to students
Reading Austen in your 20s rather than reading AI-summaries, is like watching Nickelodeon Avatar rather than watching Live Action Avatar. You get real characters rather than knockoffs
That is an absolute banger of an essay. Thanks for posting it. This 100%: "If we are transitioning away from the Gutenberg age of mass literacy, out of the world of Dostoyevsky and Eliot into one where books once again become the preoccupation of a select few, I can’t stop that from happening. But we will be the poorer for it, our lives a little more flattened and emptied. After all, what in the end will all this efficiency and optimization have been for? If we cease to see the point of reading, what are we going to do with all that time freed up by our devices?"
I agree. One should be able to justify literature (and other arts) without recourse to religious concepts like 'soul' or 'communion,' and treat the matter with less solemnity. Mere liking, however, is also not enough in many contexts. One can legitimately refuse utility assessments, but a lack of clarity won't win over anyone not already persuaded.
The heart asks pleasure first, but it also asks for a few other things
Well, that sounds quite romantic to my ears. However, I agree that art goes beyond mere concepts and touches us emotionally.
Spot on, Henry.
Thanks! It bugged me
I think the argument we need to make for reading is that it's fun, not that it's medicine. I started my Substack with that very premise here: https://clairelaporte.substack.com/p/dickens-dracula-and-djinni-literature
what stories would you want to share with your kids even if all your political goals came true and they could mindlessly follow the experts? those are the stories you should assign to students
once the written word is gone . . .
there is nothing left for us to weep or curse, or bless, or break our hearts upon.
-Dark Magic by M.A. Seiffert, 1922
Reading Austen in your 20s rather than reading AI-summaries, is like watching Nickelodeon Avatar rather than watching Live Action Avatar. You get real characters rather than knockoffs
What do you get from reading Paradise Lost that you can't get from watching it? When you can answer that, you will ensure reading lives on
That is an absolute banger of an essay. Thanks for posting it. This 100%: "If we are transitioning away from the Gutenberg age of mass literacy, out of the world of Dostoyevsky and Eliot into one where books once again become the preoccupation of a select few, I can’t stop that from happening. But we will be the poorer for it, our lives a little more flattened and emptied. After all, what in the end will all this efficiency and optimization have been for? If we cease to see the point of reading, what are we going to do with all that time freed up by our devices?"
I thought it was lame!
Oh come on! We will be the poorer for not reading? I thought you'd be all over that.