It’s a symptom of our growing illiteracy that the act of reading is considered an intellectual exercise. “It doesn’t matter what you read, just that you read it.” This sentiment would be familiar to an Englishman in the 1300s (in fact, 14th century English criminals convicted of manslaughter could avoid hanging by reading a single verse of the Bible). The same sentiment could get you 1M likes on TikTok today. But your great grandfather was reading Cicero in Latin.
So why do you even read books? Have you ever thought about it? Forget technical manuals for a second; if you’re reading Excel for Dummies or Advanced Quantum Mechanics, you probably have a concrete practical purpose in mind. Good for you, I am proud, you are still allowed to read those. Instead let’s focus on the soft stuff. Literature, history, philosophy. What’s the point?
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Entertainment Vs. Information
There are two sides to this debate: entertainment or information. Unfortunately, reading books for entertainment is ridiculous. You do not live in a log cabin on the prairie. You have Netflix, you have video games, you have TikTok, you have Twitter (you really spend too much time on Twitter anon). No one reads books for entertainment anymore, because paper is an inferior entertainment platform. The only people who still read books for entertainment are women who prefer their porn to have DIY visuals. The stats back me up on this. If you’re tempted to disagree, go walk the aisles of Barnes & Noble.
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