[HN Gopher] Reading Ourselves to Death
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Reading Ourselves to Death
Author : MindGods
Score : 55 points
Date : 2022-06-26 16:57 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.thenewatlantis.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.thenewatlantis.com)
| PKop wrote:
| Author talks of text as abstraction compared to "edited" version
| of reality of visual media. But videos, movies, TV shows are also
| abstractions, possibly worse in that they more easily trick our
| subconscious into perceiving them as more real than words on a
| page while still being constructions of a "reality" based on the
| creator's point of view. So people think they have an
| understanding of the world based on fictionalized entertainment
| and tropes they've experienced thousands of times from screens.
|
| Think of any time someone makes a political argument, or comments
| on a particular aspect of human nature by referencing something
| they saw in a movie. I think this is odd, at least if over done,
| as if the constructed media representation is somehow evidence of
| anything true. As if people don't have to have real lived
| experience of some phenomena as long as they watched something
| about it in a show or whatever.
|
| Reminds me of Baudrillard's "hyperreality" [0] concept, where
| constructed media becomes "more real than real", here's an
| excellent presentation summarizing the idea [1]
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperreality
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/2U9WMftV40c
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| Really well put, especially in regards to the notion that the
| less obvious mode of abstraction of visual media increases the
| risk that we mistake it for reality.
|
| You're right, the written word or visual depiction is still the
| result of human intentions, and I don't think the process is
| very different between the two. This is coming from a writer's
| perspective, so I guess I will state my bias.
| hprotagonist wrote:
| _" If there is no Torah study, there is no worldly involvement;
| if there is no worldly involvement, there is no Torah study. ...
| If there is no flour, there is no Torah; if there is no Torah,
| there is no flour."_
|
| It's good to walk in the world.
| togaen wrote:
| themadturk wrote:
| I had a friend tell me the other day they're amazed at the number
| of "important films that everyone has seen" that I haven't seen.
| I told them, a person who endlessly views TV series and movies
| that while I enjoy those media, my primary media is written, not
| video. I can read a book for hours at a time, but unless I'm in a
| theater, I'm always checking how much longer the thing is going
| to play, no matter how much I'm enjoying it.
|
| Doomscrolling anything...Reddit, Twitter, even HN...can be a
| waste of time, and of course I've done it many times. But I've
| never felt I lost anything while reading a book. I'm one of those
| people who read the back of cereal boxes when I was a kid.
| Getting drawn into a text-based fictional world may be an
| abstraction, but I'll take it anytime.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| Nice riff on Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death". The focus is
| really on the danger of over-reliance on one faculty. But I
| suppose the same could be said for an aural-only world of radio
| and podcasts. I disagreed that video would be an edited
| "reality". Image is no more than the way the world _looks_ as
| opposed to how it sounds or is described by text. Ultimately the
| ability to synthesise these faculties is what the phrase "common
| sense" really means. It isn't a stand-in for "bleedin obvious" or
| "what most (common) people think", it is that sense that emerges
| from an ability to create a world from sights, sounds, smells,
| tastes and also written words, so pf course I do agree that an
| over-reliance on any one mode of perception leads to minds that
| lack common sense.
| parmenidean wrote:
| Somewhat ironic given I suspect Postman would disagree with the
| majority of this article. This article asserts that the amount
| of engagement with the written word has gone up dramatically;
| "Amusing Ourselves To Death" has an entire chapter dedicated to
| demonstrating how much more early Americans engaged with
| written work. Consumption of books per capita was far higher in
| the 18th century than it is today, the literacy rate for men in
| some of the colonies was ~92% (and for women 62%), the number
| of people who read Common Sense on a per head basis is roughly
| equivalent to the number of people who watch the Super Bowl
| today, etc.
|
| The argument in "Amusing Ourselves to Death" is not that the
| written word enhances reality, it is that it engages critical
| faculties by forcing the reader to contend with the argument
| advanced by an author. This article suggests that the written
| word is a crutch for thought, and thereby diminishes our
| ability to get at reality. These ideas are not exactly opposed,
| but there is a certain discordance.
| lustforleif wrote:
| When Postman refers to written word he refers mainly to
| books. The article mentions the increase of hours spent
| reading text as a result of texting, social media etc. This
| form of written word is actually close to Postman's concerns.
|
| It's written word, but its metaphor is the same as the
| metaphor of mediums like TV.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| > This article suggests that the written word is a crutch for
| thought
|
| I got that too. And yes, also ironic for the author (a writer
| of some kind) to be advancing a seemingly anti-literary
| agenda.
| wizofaus wrote:
| I've regretted hours spent watching TV, playing computer games,
| trying to figure out how to complete a task with no information
| available, being stuck waiting somewhere with nothing to do, but
| I can't think of a case I've regretted time spent reading. There
| may be people in the world whose lives would be improved by
| reading less, but I'm guessing a vanishingly small number.
| cs137 wrote:
| The author seems to be focused on low-quality reading, both in
| terms of the material itself and in terms of habits formed
| while giving the material the (scant) attention it deserves. He
| says we encounter almost half a million words daily. No one is
| giving that stuff a deep reading, or should.
|
| The culprit is probably work. Think of how much of the typical
| office job involves ingesting low-quality information at high
| speed. The jobs aren't mentally taxing, but they do burn you
| out from serious reading, because of all the time wasted on
| peoples' shitty emails. You basically need to become a skimmer
| to survive modern life, especially if you work an office job,
| and there's a nonzero amount of mental effort in code switching
| from serious reading to half-assed work email reading.
| sabellito wrote:
| I feel the same way but I don't know why. Even when I spend
| time reading average fiction, it still feels better than
| watching youtube.
| m_mueller wrote:
| I think it's just like the difference of being spoon fed some
| yoghurt compared to having a full course dinner. That being
| said I still find YouTube better than Netflix, or worse, TV
| in that regard - at least you chose the yoghurt and some of
| it is actually pretty healthy (e.g. some of the top notch
| educational content).
| harry8 wrote:
| How about the time spent reading this (Schrodinger's value)
| comment on an internet social media site?
| wizofaus wrote:
| It's opinions I disagree with that I often feel are the more
| valuable to spend time reading.
| [deleted]
| drewcoo wrote:
| We are constantly programmed by our surroundings. By every
| stimulus we allow to interact with us. Wherever we go. We can't
| stop it. We can only control it. Sorta.
|
| That doesn't mean heavy metal is what made me a devil worshipper.
| Or that video games are the reason I killed that family of four.
| Or that having cared lovingly for several small stuffed animals
| as a child is why I spared their dog on that dread day. And
| social media will not convince anyone that anything else I've
| written in this paragraph is remotely true. They're not going to
| lose themselves in some sick fantasy.
|
| Is this the author's stage before or after solipsism? I forget.
| bglusman wrote:
| Didn't read 100% of article yet but the premise somewhat brings
| to mind the book "The Alphabet vs the Goddess"[0] which...
| definitely criticisms can be made/definitely isn't the whole
| story for the events and narrative of history it focuses on, but
| is really compelling and interesting interweaving of some major
| historical threads not otherwise easily or often connected
|
| [0]
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Alphabet_Versus_the_Godd...
| einpoklum wrote:
| > What would your grasp of the outside world feel like? ...
| increasingly ... simplified, abstracted, flattened ...
|
| More to the contrary. The more you see selected still images and
| video clips, the more your perception of the world through this
| becomes shallow, simplistic, garish. It is the written text which
| delves into complexity, the multitude of facets and nuances,
| depth.
| Sebb767 wrote:
| This is a take on the allegory of the cave[0]:
|
| > In the allegory "The Cave," Socrates describes a group of
| people who have lived chained to the wall of a cave all their
| lives, facing a blank wall. The people watch shadows projected
| on the wall from objects passing in front of a fire behind them
| and give names to these shadows. The shadows are the prisoners'
| reality, but are not accurate representations of the real
| world.
|
| So, basically, the point is that if you only ever see the
| abstraction, it becomes your reality.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_cave
| einpoklum wrote:
| ... which is funny, because IIRC Socrates was trying to get
| people recognize "ideal forms", perfect truths, as opposed to
| their imperfect manifestations/reflections in the world.
| mcdermott wrote:
| I think what you read is the key here. Mindless reading of text
| messages, news headlines and social media posts is very different
| cognitively than reading actual literature, something like Thomas
| Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow.
| leobg wrote:
| Interested in sharing what makes this particular work valuable,
| in your eyes? I'm assuming that you've read many books. So if
| you single out this one as an example for a particularly good
| read, I'm curious to hear why. Thanks!
| Dan_Sylveste wrote:
| There's an element of irony here I suspect. Gravity's Rainbow
| is (IMHO) a _good_ book but it's a pain in the neck to read
| as a lot of the writing is... complex.
|
| There's a true point being made that a lot of social media
| content is incredibly badly written and the brain 'teaches
| itself' to fill in blanks that you don't have to fill in when
| reading literature, though.
|
| If you go from reading books (any books, really, anything
| that's been published) to reading reddit you have to go
| through an adjustment period as so much of what's on the
| screen looks like gibberish as it's so un-edited.
| deepsun wrote:
| ... or Hacker News comments.
| bumby wrote:
| I think the author tries to capture the counterpoint: that much
| of the effect is due to the sheer volume of text. From the
| article:
|
| "...we would have to account for the quality of reading too, as
| much of it involves skimming and darting around the page. But
| the sheer quantity matters...We are so used to our screens
| bombarding us with text -- news, tweets, emails -- that we are
| almost surprised to discover that the walls around us have
| nothing to say. The sudden absence of words -- the evaporation
| of the sense of control they give us -- feels disorienting. "
| purplerabbit wrote:
| Social media posts may be bad for you brain, but my personal
| opinion of Gravity's Rainbow is that ~everyone who "enjoys"
| that painful slog does so because of the "literary" status
| "enjoying" Gravity's Rainbow affords them
| goalieca wrote:
| People spend too much time in their heads and not enough in the
| real world. We used to say people need to stop reading books
| and start talking to people.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| People need to get out and touch grass way more often.
| gnicholas wrote:
| I feel like the shift in social media from Facebook to instagram
| and TikTok actually makes us less surrounded by text than we were
| last decade.
| paulpauper wrote:
| _If an alien landed on Earth today, it might assume that reading
| and writing are our species' main function, second only to
| sleeping and well ahead of eating and reproducing._
|
| what about:
|
| watching tv
|
| driving
|
| playing video games
|
| watching porn
|
| watching video online
|
| podcasts/audio books
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| All of them involve reading and/or writing of some kind.
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