{"id":7338,"date":"2017-07-14T01:23:41","date_gmt":"2017-07-14T01:23:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/?p=7338"},"modified":"2017-07-14T01:25:25","modified_gmt":"2017-07-14T01:25:25","slug":"radicalism-of-reading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/blog\/2017\/07\/radicalism-of-reading\/","title":{"rendered":"The Radicalism of Reading – Article by Eileen L. Wittig"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\"The<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Eileen L. Wittig
\n<\/big><\/big><\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n
July 13, 2017<\/span>
\n<\/big><\/div>\n
******************************<\/div>\n
\n

It\u2019s Peak Reading Season: too hot to go outside, too lethargic to do much inside, no holidays coming up for a while. Polls and anecdotes are probably telling you that reading is on the decline \u2013 people just don\u2019t read like they used to! \u2013 but it turns out that depends on what demographic<\/a> you\u2019re looking at, and it\u2019s a bit embarrassing for the old people shaking their heads over \u201ckids these days.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re looking at people over the age of 65, your thought is right. Only 67 percent have read a book in the past year, regardless of format. But if you look at people age 18-29, a.k.a. the ones who supposedly do nothing but scroll through the internet all day, that number jumps up to 80 percent. Awkward.<\/p>\n

Granted, that\u2019s only talking about people who have read an actual book, and I\u2019d argue that reading educational articles counts. If we include that, the reading statistic would jump even higher.<\/p>\n

And that would\u2019ve been horrible a century ago. And in the century before that. And all the way back to ancient Greece.<\/p>\n

The modern obsession with reading is just that: a modern obsession, created by technology, new genres of literature, and advances in class, gender, and socioeconomic equality. It took about 2,500 years, but we made it.<\/p>\n

Technological Advance, Copyrighted<\/strong><\/p>\n

You\u2019d think the ancient Greeks would\u2019ve been all about writing things down, but there was resistance from Socrates. He was a huge supporter of the previous technology: oral tradition, when knowledge was passed down through the generations by talking.<\/p>\n

Thankfully Plato ignored him and recorded<\/a>, for the millennia, that Socrates said writing would be terrible for society, causing \u201cforgetfulness,\u201d giving \u201cnot truth, but only the semblance of truth,\u201d making everyone \u201cappear to be omniscient, but knowing nothing,\u201d creating nothing but \u201ctiresome company.\u201d Thus did literature have its first great irony.<\/p>\n

For hundreds of years, we wrote things down. Most books<\/a> were either religious or historical, regardless of country, culture, or religion of origin, and as the times changed, this general rule became alternately stricter and looser. Strict class structure, long work days, and the lack of publishing technology resulted in relatively low literacy rates<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The next big step forward was Gutenberg\u2019s printing press. No more hand-writing everything! Suddenly books could be mass-produced, and with that ability came books in many different genres: poetry<\/a>, technical knowledge<\/a>, morality stories<\/a>, and even sheet music<\/a>. It took a while for people to realize they could start printing books in their own native languages and not only in the then-universal literary language<\/a> of Latin, but it got there eventually.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, as happens now, with this new technology came new laws, particularly the Ordinance for the Regulation of Printing, issued in England in 1643. The Ordinance proclaimed<\/a> that<\/p>\n

Nor other Book, Pamphlet, paper, nor part of any such Book, Pamphlet, or paper shall from henceforth be printed, bound, stitched or put to sale by any person or persons whatsoever, unless the same be first approved of and licensed under the hands of such person or persons as both, or either of the said Houses shall appoint for the licensing of the same, and entred in the Register Book of the Company of Stationers, according to ancient custom, and the Printer thereof to put his name thereto.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In other words, you couldn\u2019t print anything unless you had express permission from a government-appointed person. You couldn\u2019t submit your book to the registry without government permission, either.<\/p>\n

Needless to say, this didn\u2019t help publishing progress. However, after the Glorious Revolution of 1688 created the Declaration of Rights, which included the right to free speech, England\u2019s society opened up, and the Ordinance was allowed to lapse in 1694. Free speech combined with less regulation resulted in many more printing presses and publication houses<\/a> in both England and the American colonies, and publication of books, newspapers, and pamphlets started going up. With more things available, more people could start reading, and the literacy rate in the West went up.<\/p>\n

And then a brand new literary genre was invented, and the literary world changed forever (not even hyperbolically).<\/p>\n

But the Women!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Up to this point, \u201cthe literacy rate went up\u201d has referred more to men than to women. Some women could read, of course, but it was a male-dominated sphere until the end of the 19th century<\/a>. Women didn\u2019t work outside the home as much, and they were still considered to be inferior to men, so they often did not have comparable educations. The rise of female literacy came when the novel was spreading across the world, but the genre was not welcomed like it is today.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s disagreement over what the first novel was \u2013 most people say it\u2019s Don Quixote<\/a><\/em>, published all the way back in 1605, but others say it\u2019s Pamela<\/a><\/em>, published in 1740 \u2013 no matter which author was responsible for it, there was a lot of antagonism, even from the medical world<\/a>. Novels were considered to be evil, destroying not only the morality but also the physical health of their \u201csusceptible\u201d female readers. Even in 1899, people were still warning against the \u201cevils of reading\u201d for women.<\/p>\n

The problem was that they couldn\u2019t actually agree on the details. One doctor wrote that novels would detrimentally accelerate a girl\u2019s physical maturity, while another wrote that reading, and education in general, would cause of the opposite problem by preventing women from being able to have children. Reading novels could even<\/a> make a woman uppity and encourage her to disrupt the status quo \u2013 the horror! Some went even further, warning that reading novels would cause insanity<\/a> and even death<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Other people were more subtle in their predictions, believing novels would merely blur the line between fact and fiction. Authors themselves<\/a> were torn: Gustave Flaubert ironically wrote a novel about this idea in Madame Bovary<\/em>, while Jane Austen sensibly wrote against it in Northanger Abbey<\/em>.<\/p>\n

As more and more novels were written, and as women themselves entered the writing world, the hostility and sexism eventually died away. Today, we\u2019ve progressed far beyond the old sexism: women now read more books<\/a> than men, and the best-selling book series in history is a set of novels written by a woman: J.K. Rowling\u2019s Harry Potter<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

Lowering the Threshold<\/strong><\/p>\n

Even with the lapsing copyright laws and the increased demand for books thanks to women\u2019s literacy, publication was expensive, so books were expensive too. Reading was generally reserved for the higher classes who were, first off, educated, but could actually afford the money and time to read. Even Benjamin Franklin\u2019s library required a subscription<\/a> only a few tradesmen could afford. But that trend started changing when Charles Dickens and New York<\/a> entered the sphere, thanks to the Industrial Revolution and the Enlightenment.<\/p>\n

New York\u2019s publishing houses \u2013 including Harper Bros. \u2013 were big enough to afford both large-scale publications, which made the books cheaper to publish and buy, and the vast expanse of the American West opened by the creation of the Erie Canal in 1825. The invention of the paperback book<\/a> lowered the cost of books even further, giving people the \u201cdime novel.\u201d Publishers also took advantage of the lax international copyright laws and published whatever they wanted, including the works of one of the world\u2019s first celebrity authors, Charles Dickens.<\/p>\n

Over in England, Dickens was doing a strange thing and successfully writing about the poor. Taking from his own experiences growing up, Dickens used his talents and popularity to promote equality among the classes, greater education, and sympathy for people historically ignored. But he was also creating a new medium of publication: the magazine serialization<\/a>, which ultimately became the standard form of novel-printing for the era all over the world. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Alexandre Dumas, Henry James, Gustave Flaubert, Leo Tolstoy, and Harriet Beecher Stowe all published serial works. Printing in magazines allowed a greater audience to enjoy literature that would otherwise be reserved only for the people who could afford the time and money to read them in book format.<\/p>\n

Speaking of Stowe, the literacy gap<\/a> in America between whites and all minorities was huge for the first 200 years of our history. Just after the Civil War, in 1870, 79.9 percent of blacks and minorities were illiterate. That rate dropped steadily until 1910, at which point the illiteracy rate among minorities was 30.5 percent. The literacy rate continued growing, albeit slower than before, until the race gap was finally closed in 1980.<\/p>\n

21st-Century Reading<\/strong><\/p>\n

All the technological, social, and economic advances made during the explosive 18th and 19th centuries carried through into the modern era, spreading literacy and dispelling weird rumors until the world literacy rate went from 12% in 1800 to 85% in 2014. With the internet, e-readers, and all our smart devices, people are reading more now than ever; and the availability and variety of content is unlike anything even imagined just a century ago.<\/p>\n

So when a relative or stranger tells you to put your phone down, ask them when they last read a book, and then quote something smart from the article you\u2019re reading<\/a> on your phone.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Eileen Wittig is an Associate Editor and author of the Lazy Millennial column at FEE. You can follow the Lazy Millennial Twitter here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eileen L. Wittig July 13, 2017 ****************************** It\u2019s Peak Reading Season: too hot to go outside, too lethargic to do much inside, no holidays coming up for a while. Polls and anecdotes are probably telling you that reading is on the decline \u2013 people just don\u2019t read like they used to! \u2013 but it turns out that depends on what demographic you\u2019re looking at, and it\u2019s a bit embarrassing for the old people shaking their heads over \u201ckids these days.\u201d…<\/p>\n

Read More Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[87,1634],"tags":[625,2452,359,4827,4828,5262,4730,5261,916,950,2011,5260,640,951,109,25],"class_list":["post-7338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-education-2","tag-books","tag-britain","tag-copyright","tag-eileen-l-wittig","tag-eileen-wittig","tag-glorious-revolution","tag-harry-potter","tag-j-k-rowling","tag-learning","tag-literacy","tag-literature","tag-phones","tag-printing-press","tag-reading","tag-technology","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7338"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7338\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7340,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7338\/revisions\/7340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}