How did incomprehensible slang, spiced with vulgarity, become an object of emulation? I used to listen to farmers without college degrees speak wonderful English; now to listen to a member of Congress almost requires a translator.
Reading alone enriches our vocabulary; it teaches us that good writing requires a sense of melody as well as a command of grammar. Soon those well-read become the well-spoken.
Technology has deluded the modern West. We equate widespread knowledge of how to use an iPad with collective wisdom. Because a rare, brilliantly inventive mind from Caltech or MIT can craft a device undreamed of in the age of Einstein, we assume that we all warrant a share in his genius, as if our generation has trumped Einstein’s. We deserve no such kudos — unless animals at the zoo that find delight in their rote enjoyment of their hoops and bars can be credited with the architect’s sophisticated zoological design.
We don’t need more technocrats who fool us that their Ivy League law degrees are synonymous with wisdom. They can be, but now are more likely not much more than tickets that allow an Eric Holder or Timothy Geithner into the first-class seating. I am not calling for us to be academics or scholastics with our noses in books or our heads up our posteriors; but to match physicality and pragmatism with occasional abstraction and reflection from the voices of the past — just a little, now and then, to remind us that Twitter or Facebook speed up communication, but can slow down thought.
I don’t know, he makes some valid points but this seems mostly like the ramblings of an out-of-touch classics professor. I had a few of the type in the liberal arts classes we were forced to take. I very rarely start a book and don’t finish it, being a fast reader helps; but nothing will cause me to lose interest faster than a meandering, overly wordy writing style.
These guys are like the Allentown music snobs of books. “What do you like to read?” “Classics YOUR KIND has never even heard of, MAN! Not that mainstream garbage on the best-sellers list.”
I’m guilty,I don’t remember the last time I’ve gone cover to cover with a book. I do make a valid attempt though to separate myself from the idiots on facebook. :tup:
I am not sure I have ever sat down and read a book all the way through. Even in highschool I never had the attention span to sit and do nothing for any period of time. I get bored very quickly.