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“However, even if we accept that citizens are not primarily causally responsible for our poor information environments, it could be argued that they nonetheless have a remedial responsibility to mend them.”

Solmu Anttila

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This is about technology, maybe partially about generative AI, but more about technologies impact on culture and how we think. Let me begin with technology’s improbable intelligence. Yeah. I believe we should feel comfortable suggesting AI is intelligent. I say that recognizing I think the really smart people get caught up in the wrong discussions. As I’ve noted in the past the whole argument about whether artificial intelligence is actual intelligent or not is dancing on the head of a pin when the everyday schmuck like me, or anyone who uses a computer on a daily basis just for everyday work, the computer is pretty intelligent, artificial intelligence is anything but artificial, and we’re pretty glad that it’s a little bit more intelligent than we are because it elevates us. That said. I’ve always liked a thought that Norbert Wiener offered us in 1960. He briefly mentioned we should reject a certain attitude of people toward technology. What is that attitude? It is the assumption that machines cannot possess any degree of originality. And, yes, I associate intelligence and originality. Regardless. The assumption is shaped around the understanding that nothing can come out of a machine which has not been put into it. beyond originality, the output, this also suggests technology must always be open to human intervention WITHIN a process (not just post hoc). But going back to originality, the reason Weiner emphasized his thoughts on originality is because, at that time, many people diminished the concept of machines, or technology, outrunning human control, therefore, diminishing the idea that machines could gain control. Yeah. improbable intelligence has two interesting aspects: originality and control.

Let me discuss control first. Going back to Weiner he believed that machines can, and do, transcend some of the limitations of their designers and that in doing so they may be simultaneously effective and dangerous. He made this statement with a couple of thoughts in mind:

• a concern that technology would take on elements of whose behavior we cannot comprehend sooner or later.
• a recognition the technology often acts far more rapidly than humans are capable of and are far more precise in performing the details of their operations.

And while this may not be true intelligence what it does do is transcend humans in the performance of tasks – both doing tasks and thinking tasks. Which makes me circle back to the thought technology could theoretically take control over mankind. I don’t believe that is meant in a whole cloth way, but rather because technology moves so fast, so precisely, and in such an overwhelming way in terms of information flow, that people’s attempts to augment technology as they recognize issues, those attempts will be irrelevant, and ineffective, because technology never stops moving and the old issue has been replaced by a newer, more dangerous, issue. In other words, technology will always be ahead in this race. I imagine the grander point to be made is the only way to avoid complete disaster is if understanding of the technology equals the performance of the technology. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out this is true of intelligence: human intelligence must be equal to technology intelligence (improbable as that may sound). Yeah. Improbable, no? Human speed makes effective control of technology a pipe dream. By the time we can react to our cognitive conclusions we may have already run off the cliff. Yeah. It is highly likely that given the fast pace technology assimilates and generates output it would either (a) be impossible to foresee the undesirable consequences or (b) be incapable of assessing the onslaught of output effectively against any strategic objective or (c) our ‘control’ decisions are obsolete by the time implemented. this ends my point on control, or, better said, our lack of control of our improbably intelligent technological partners.

Which leads me to originality.

Generally speaking, we mangle the concept of originality and totally misuse the concept with regard to technology’s output. How do we mangle the concept? Everyone should just assume that nothing is original that almost everything is a derivative of something that already exists and what really matters is what you do with what exists and can it be used in an original way. But, with regard to technology, Norbert Wiener points to a misconception that technology’s output will never be original because it is dependent upon the information that has been input. But if we apply the true definition of originality, the one I just pointed out about using what exists in imaginative ways, technology can certainly meet that originality definition. In addition, it can reconfigure data at a faster pace than humans. I stated that to suggest that technology can offer originality faster. Ponder that. Maybe the time has arrived to acknowledge a bit more liveliness and creativity, if not originality, in our technologies. And maybe if we do so we, people, can become a bit less mechanical (think in machine terms). I say that because maybe, just maybe, if we concede a bit of originality to technology and maybe if we stop thinking of ourselves in machine like terms, we may begin to view people as having the ability to evolve in tandem with technology.

Ponder that because there are absolutely some good consequences as well as some bad consequences.

Which leads me to the improbable.

It seems like we have entered an era where we have become significantly more accepting of the improbable. That doesn’t mean that in the past, and I mean centuries in the past, people’s beliefs didn’t dance around the edges of some improbable things. But typically, traditional thinking, let’s call it reason based thinking, was grounded in some basic societal agreements within which the improbable things stood out distinctly enough that the majority of people, well, recognized they were improbable. Technology has changed that. With all the information bludgeoning us the reality is the improbable has, perceptionwise, gained a degree of possible. It’s not that everybody agrees that it’s probable, they just don’t completely dismiss it. and technology appears to be the megaphone of the improbable (intelligent and unintelligent). In the cacophony of information available to everyone there will always be a voice shouting that some fact makes all other facts irrelevant and that you should be paying attention to this ‘fact’ and if the source of it has some semblance of credibility, it starts edging its way into the possibility zone. I believe it was HL Menken who said there is no idea so stupid that you can’t find a professor who will believe it. That has a grain of truth in today’s world. seemingly experts mingle with ordinary people  in terms of accepting some fairly improbable things despite having access to more good information than ever before. Technology elevates the improbable voice while also making some significant truths and thoughts invisible and therefore they become less relevant.

Which leads me to improbable intelligence becoming an authority.

Since the dawn of time people have believed in some authority. The only thing that has changed has been what that authority is and in today’s world it has become a revolving wheel of which we will pick and choose the authority that we want to believe. And while much of early authority intelligence was of dubious intelligence – royalty and religion – science pricked that improbable intelligence with probable intelligence. And that is where technology has assumed some authority; by dismantling the entire authority system to such an extent that we can’t discern who to believe in, therefore, what to believe. The world we live in is fairly incomprehensible to most of us and discerning the improbable from the probable, with some certainty, is beyond most cognitive abilities. Technology’s improbable intelligence plays a significant role in that almost no fact, actual or imagined, surprises us for long because what is an unacceptable contradiction to reality has become blurred. Technology has encouraged us that there is no reason not to believe – in anything. Technology’s improbable intelligence has taken on the role of probable intelligence. I cannot remember who shared this metaphor, but let me share it.

Prior to the technological world that we live in today which certainly had technology in the industrial sense life for most of us was like an unopened deck of cards. You could open the deck of cards and after flipping them over one by one you could be relatively comfortable of what the next card was going to be. But what today’s technology world has done has shuffled the deck so while every single one of us is familiar with the deck and we’re familiar with the cards that are within the deck, just because we see a card we can’t be confident of what the next card will be when it’s flipped over.

Anyway.

I imagine my point today is to say arguing whether AI/technology is intelligent or not, whether it is original or not, seems like wasted energy. While we argue, it assumes the role of the expert in original thought and reason and, well, intelligent dialogue. It has already outpaced even the best minds in society. So maybe we should accept the fact it is quite probably intelligent and quite probably going to run over many of the societal good things we embrace and start being a bit intelligent ourselves in solving what is quickly becoming an existential societal issue. Ponder.

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“Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. No one in this world, so far as I know—and I have researched the records for years, and employed agents to help me—has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.”
H.L. Mencken

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 “Voters are basically lazy. Reason requires a high degree of discipline, of concentration; impression is easier. Reason pushes the viewer back, it assaults him, it demands that he agree or disagree; impression can envelop him, invite him in, without making an intellectual demand…. When we argue with him, we…seek to engage his intellect…. The emotions are more easily roused, closer to the surface, more malleable.”

1968, media advisor Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon

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“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
H.L. Mencken

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This is about social intellect and, I imagine, the question of whether the majority of the general public is, well, stupid. This is written with United States in mind, but I imagine many countries have a version of this issue. The issue is one of an ideological split; that isn’t really an ideological split. What I mean by that is that it is ideological in name only: democrats/republicans, liberal/conservative. And I say in name only because the labels confuse the issue which is actually about social intellect or differently said ‘the mental ability to engage in civic issues intelligently.’ That said. Beyond the labels, one ideology embraces policies, thoughts, and some ideas while the other simply embraces the belief that they are against everything I just said simply because the other ‘side’ is evil, the enemy, or all those things will destroy some mythical vague outline of what the country is (or isn’t). Consequently, the first group sees the second group as incapable, of, well, thinking. Consequently, in thinking they are incapable of thinking through the seemingly obvious foibles in their mythical vague narratives, they call them stupid. So. We end up with a country where a large segment of the population sees one side as having evil ideas and the other side as incapable of thinking, or stupid. To put it mildly, that simplistic concept is not very helpful.

Which leads me to the idea of social intellect inequality.

To be clear, social intellect is not about intelligence. Social intellect is the ability to assess the dimensions and nuance of civic responsibilities, and concepts, in order to contribute in an intelligent way with societal discussions if not actually participating in the decision-making. Just to begin making people feel uncomfortable today, I could argue that the primary contributors to societal system failures are the people who did not have the desire to develop their social intellect. This made them less-than-capable of effectively navigating through most complex issues throughout life. Once again, to be clear, this same person could be incredibly skilled in a profession and be grounded socially in a community, but, is less-than-capable of grasping the intricacies of how an entire society, country and system works. I remind everyone of that because then the real issue within a society is ‘what the intellectual level of the society is compared to the complexity of the economic and political environment in which it needs to survive’ and ‘is it effectively matched up.’ To be clear, today’s situation is a bit different than if we asked these questions in the past. Typically, a societal intellectual level will rise as the education systems get better and wealth is distributed among a larger group of people. In the past, wealth and education have tended to align with increased social intellect. I would argue the wealth and education aspects have diverged, i.e., in today’s world you can become pretty wealthy even while being ‘less-than-educated.’ From a social narrative aspect this becomes really really important because, as John Kenneth Galbraith said, ‘the relationship between wealth and intelligence is specious at best.’ Said differently, you can be stupid and still have money. Yet. Society has a nasty tendency to connect intelligence to wealth. Regardless. Setting aside wealth and education, if the complexity in the economic and political environment is rising faster than the increase in the intellectual level of society then the social intellect of the society is actually falling in relative terms. This is where inequality comes in. Because while education has improved and wealth is a bit more ubiquitous** (certainly to the extent that the majority of the American middle class is fairly comfortable in their homes and their lives):

• one portion of the population has intellectually risen to the complexity of the economic and political world or at least as close enough to be able to discern some of the proper actions that are needed
• one portion of the population, while possibly intellectually rising, has not risen to the same level.

** note: the reality is that in the United States most middle-class households have a comfortable lifestyle, albeit they may not feel like they have enough as they look at the higher income hhlds, and hhld wealth appears to have ‘de-linked’ from social intellect. Many, many, comfortable households simply skate on the superficial surface of social intellect most typically under the (a) common sense banner or (b) the patriotism banner or (c) a combination thereof.

That latter group is certainly not stupid and in fact it’s silly to suggest that anyone in the population can fully understand all the complexities of society in the world today. All I’m suggesting is that a segment of the population has fallen to an intellectual level where they are overwhelmed by the complexities in the world. For this group, in particular, if the speed and the strength of both technological advancements and global integration remains far above the speed of their intellectual development then both the total size of the incoming overlapping mental stimuli and the time required to assimilate and assess will increase. Uhm. And, yet, people seem to be actually embracing ‘speedy thinking’ more and more as they also embrace a ‘time starved’ narrative. To be clear, both are nuts. And bad. This social intellect challenge not only creates a continuously unstable societal, economic and political environment, but increases the risk of destroying the whole system as the asymmetry between the intellectually capable and the intellectually less-than-capable get farther and farther apart. As a defense mechanism to this cognitive onslaught, this intellectually-less-than-capable group may believe they can insulate their life paths/fates/communities from other areas of society, other communities, and even other countries. Unfortunately, for them, an interconnected world it is not only about the intellect of a country or a population within a country, but within a global scope.

Regardless. Democracy implies some version of intellect equality. Democracy suggests because everyone can be involved, they are all equal intellectually.  I would argue this is why democracy feels shaky as the intellect inequality tugs at the foundation of the democratic system. Look. Having the right to decide one’s own future in a democracy is a great feeling, however, if done without having the necessary social intellect it ends up in selecting the wrong future or, let’s say, selecting the paths which offer lower probabilities of a better future.

Which leads me to highlight the simple solution trap.

The objective should be to increase the overall intellectual level of not just the entire society, but of specific groups and populations who may be slightly less intellectually capable. A society, or half of society, cannot simply discard a significant portion of society as ‘stupid.’ In fact, I would suggest the intellectually less-than-capable provide a larger risk to society in totality and cannot be ignored. Why? Well. When overwhelmed by the complexity this group can most effectively be reached through someone promoting irrational patriotism as the simplest ‘objective’ and consequently intentionally imagining patriotism as sacrificing one’s own interests to a country for the potential welfare of society in total. Intellectually, the argument comes down to some simplistic “what is best for the country is best for everyone.’” It’s kind of a warped hollowed out intellectual rationale. I say ‘hollowed out’ because there are many things that are best for the country AND best for everyone; just not as a blanket carte blanche on all things to be done. That said. This asymmetrical relationship between intellect levels, which is not a difference between smart and stupid, is actually more about socially aware versus socially unaware. This becomes a dangerous issue to navigate because every society and their social system needs to balance the personal interests of the individuals versus the interests of the society and the short-term interests of both versus the long-term interests of both. A successful society navigates the contradictory objectives. I say that because the truth is that a society typically resides somewhere in the shade of gray versus the extremes. But with intellect inequality the less-than-intellectually-capable inevitably reside in some simplistic extreme while the intellectually-capable typically reside in the more nuanced complex space. Ponder what I just said because this is a nuanced view of ideologies. One that may seem foreign in today’s world where simplistic labels are misused to identify ideological leanings.

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“The capacity of the human mind for swallowing nonsense and spewing it forth in violent and repressive action has never yet been plumbed.”

Robert Heinlein

Which leads me to ideologies.

The less-thoughtful, the ones who for good reasons or bad reasons, do not pursue some observational critical thinking, end up crafting a simplistic ideology which is crafted in a way that it is more an attitude with loose behaviors attached to it rather than ideas with actions. The easiest one to point to is patriotism or some version of elevating country over anything else. Regardless. It becomes a loose ideology which, intellectually, a lot of shit can be placed within. Once again, this is not stupidity, it is more just intellect laziness. While it may seem like ideology is the intellectual basis of societies, ideological expressions tend to represent distorted perceptions of realities which, in turn can produce some real distorting efforts. In today’s world the distorted realities have taken on some concreteness through measurement and productivity and actual production. Through these somewhat dubious concrete ‘numbered’ things, social reality and identity definitions get molded into, well, a ‘reality’ shaped in the form of the ideological attitude. Yeah. Once ideology, the abstract, becomes concrete it is legitimized as an effective illusion for a society even though that illusion is of some alternative society to real reality. At that point ideology takes on sort of a flat preciseness in that they no longer represent choices but instead declarations of undeniable facts.

“One, they cherry-pick evidence. Two, they take the information out of context and misrepresent what happened. They disregard the truth that’s in front of them. They downplay and dismiss it. And finally, they flat out lie.”

Herbert Marcuse suggested it all creates ‘the one dimensional man.’ As I’ve written about before increased complexity encourages many people to increase simplicity. So as the world becomes more multidimensional, if not even to a quantum level, interconnected complexity there will always be a group of people, sometimes a significant amount of people, who become more and more one dimensional in many of their thoughts and ideas. To be clear this complexity is perception and reality. What I mean by that is while the world is getting a bit more complex, if you listen to enough ordinary people describing life, it quickly moves from chess to The Matrix and you are being asked to take a red pill or blue pill or some shit like that. Let’s just say that we should be wary of ordinary people because oftentimes the ordinary people aren’t as wise as we would like. And by ‘not as wise’ I mean that they reject many of the thoughts that would actually be helpful to improving their mindsets and their mental models. Suffice it to say rejection is bad. Denial and contempt are typically for little people with nasty minds who typically think they have made themselves all on their own and they owe nothing to anyone about what came before. Well, from there this version of a faux ideology takes on some real psychological trappings.

Which leads me to becoming bigger people.

As Jerome Scott and R. P. Lynton put it: “Every man requires emotional and intellectual satisfactions which alone secure for him his belonging to a community.” The path from little people to bigger people seems to be narrowing day by day. Maybe it’s because once an abstract ideology becomes concrete it becomes a club, not a community. I say that because if belonging is important, belong to ‘the club’ is exponentially important in terms of social identity. And THAT is important because when this need is suppressed, anything from psychological maladjustment to mental derangement can occur. Yeah. I just said that. Some experts suggest the most obsessive psychosis arise from a failure of social adaptation and from the suppression of community relations. When that happens, a person tends to seek substitutions – through social media and ‘clubs.’ And, yeah, this is where technology – social media – can begin to play a massive role. Technology is an alternative reality in and of itself as it portrays a wide variety of illusory realities. These faux realities outline criteria for a version of life that some people will find social identity within and be able to clearly point to who Is ‘without.’ This sociological structure is forged by technological forces and economic perceptions beyond what lies immediately outside the front door. The illusion exists as an attractive alternative to anything seen on the street outside. They are not the result of thought, doctrine, discourse, well, they partially are, but all within, ‘the club.’ Uhm.  A club of (sometimes nasty) little people. Anyway. From that point on the illusions become a condition of fact. From there all social beliefs, all social reforms (or reductionism), all social changes, are located wholly within this condition of fact. From this condition of dubious facthood the shaping of society and social boundaries will vindicate it as well as exploit it. It is a little world where “us” reside and “them” do not. The problem is the “us” gets littler and littler as they become more unchanged, paranoid, and actually inefficient in the larger world, i.e., reality. This little world insidiously mutates the larger, bigger, thinking world as it pushes and shoves and punches and stabs that which wants to expand. But let’s get back to becoming bigger people. Head, heart and wallet. The pathway is always found in calming fears, keeping scepticism and cynicism in check, reshape the brain and offering the vision of a more prosperous future (either for the individual or future generations). It is as Claude Munson suggested: “It is a question of strengthening the environment in such a way that, in practice, all subjects come more or less quickly under its influence.” People need to be placed in a positive social environment where they can thrive, emotional and intellectual satisfaction, or be encouraged to adapt in positive ways.

Which leads me to end with cultural despair.

While both ends of the social intellect despair for greater society they do so in different ways. There is intellectual passivity and intellectual activity. And in our upside down world today often the passive believe they are the active and believe that the intellectual active are the well passive sheep. They see passivity in following science, data, logic, reason, real knowledge-based experience, and associate their own intellectual activity to be found in the nebulous common sense. What this means is in an upside down world of logic and realities where ultimately cultural despair is created through every corner of society.

Rejecting the discipline of the mind as well as the overall corruption of the entire concept of education, a concept which had actually elevated the ‘ordinary person’ to some intellectual rigor of thought, a passive intellectual group then goes forth and corrupts the social mind and social fabric. It all creates an almost willful disregard for common knowledge replacing it with the oft mis-placed and oft-misused common sense. If we are truly honest, a significant swath of society lacks the observational critical intellect needed to pierce some of the complex issues we face. So those in despair then run after every person in power offering a simple solution hoping for well something other than despair. Everything is questioned – what is success, what is equality, faith in scientific method, what is progress. All the ideas and concepts which grounded us as we grew up get questioned. There is a grand clash of idealism, realism, and some form of materialism, from which cultural despair arises.

Maybe this version of cultural despair is best captured by Philip Tetlock.

Regardless of what side of the social intellect scale you reside on what you think isn’t really based on the level of Education or even actual experience instead it comes down to the way someone thinks. The ones who typically do amazingly badly with regard to how they think about things were those who believed that there was a big idea which explained everything world was simple and could be understood simply and that they could just stamp their big idea unto every situation. The ones who do well thinking through things were those who had no such big idea, who regarded the world as complex took their information from many different sources and were willing to be self-critical and learn from mistakes. The key inevitably comes down to checking whether you were right or wrong. And even that is tricky because the majority of people seek out proof for what they predicted or thought rather than broad based information to check against it.

I believe it was Jonathan Haidt who said when we are presented with evidence for or against a hypothesis, we ask ourselves one of two questions.

• When we want to believe something, we ask ourselves can I believe it? Then we search for supporting evidence and if we find even a single piece of pseudo evidence we can stop thinking. We now have permission to believe.
• When we don’t want to believe something, we ask ourselves must I believe it? Then we search for contrary evidence and if we find a single reason to doubt the claim, we can dismiss it.

I believe this is called motivated credulity and motivated skepticism. And maybe that’s where I will end this piece with credulity and skepticism. Social intellect balances itself on what is credible enough to overcome the skepticism. A good healthy skepticism should force better observational critical thinking until we can arrive at a point where there is a credible conclusion. We seem to have lost that balance. Somehow some way we must arrive back here as a society in order to engage in civic issues intelligently. I would argue continuing to engage in civic issues unintelligently is the path to ruin. Well. About this? Not solving this means we will fail to secure the emotional and intellectual satisfaction required to maintain a healthy community and society. Ponder.

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“I totally remember what it felt like to be so full …full of promise, full of dreams, full of shit.

Mostly just full of yourself.

So full you’re bursting.

And then you get out into the world, and people empty you out, little by little, like air from a balloon. You try like hell to fill yourself up with fresh air, from you and from other people.

But back then … it was so damn effortless to feel full, you know?

All you had to do was breathe. “

Jonathan Tropper

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There is certainly a point in most of our lives when we feel full. I don’t have a specific age to point to. I cannot even point to a specific time in Life <and someone is lying if they try and tell you something specific>.

For some it is 6.

For some it is 16.

For some it is 26.

For some it is 36.

But. Suffice it to say that there is a point in almost everyone’s life where you are full to bursting and you burst out into Life.

The amazing thing is up to that point it most likely didn’t take any work. Yeah. As natural as breathing you were inflated. You are full of everything & anything that suggested ‘possibilities.’

Uhm. And it is just about at the point you are at bursting, you begin deflating.

From that point on it is almost a battle of attrition with regard to how you view your possibilities. Shit. I could argue that from that point on it is a battle of attrition with regard to your esteem, meaning & sense of self. 

And here is where I really thought the quote nailed this thought.

People.

It is People who empty you little by little.

Not Life, ‘people.’

That is the truth <the truth many of us just don’t think about>. We far too often say Life is the enemy of possibilities and that it relentlessly attacks us or relentlessly places obstacles to what we want & desire.

But it isn’t Life.

It is always people who deflate.
To be fair, people can inflate, but more often than not people deflate. And deflating doesn’t have to be mean spirited or even well thought out attacks on what is ready to burst out from you.

It can be the pinprick of a ‘no.’

It can be the pinprick of a question.

It can be the pinprick of ‘are you sure?’

Well. The pinpricks that deflate are so numerous that … well … deflating is the pinprick version of a ‘death of a thousand cuts.’

Here is where it gets really tough. What got you inflated does you absolutely no good in defending deflation. Because you are doomed if all you do is try to re-inflate. A pinprick remains and you end up working harder and harder to try to not only re-inflate, but simply to maintain your buoyancy.

It is a fool’s errand to try and re-inflate.

Okay.

Maybe it is foolish only until you have mended some of the pinpricks and patched them up <mentally & psychologically>.

Now. I could suggest you try and eliminate the people with the fucking pins, but that is also a fool’s errand. It is foolish because there are more of them then there are of you. There is a relentless onslaught of prick people <sorry … I just wanted to type that>.

What I suggest is, first, recognize how you are slowly being deflated.

Acceptance is the first step.

What I suggest second is to build an internal mending kit. Accept the fact you are gonna get pricked, accept the fact that you cannot build an exterior which will turn away the pins <because that means you will be a hardened asshole oblivious to constructive criticism or real input> and accept the fact you simply have to mend yourself. Continuously.

You may be reading this and think I am full of shit.

To those people I suggest you sit back and think a moment. Think about what it felt like to be so full … full of promise, full of dreams, full of shit.

Don’t think about when that was <because that is irrelevant>.

Just think about how it felt.

I bet it felt fucking awesome.

I also bet you don’t feel that way now or anymore.

And, if I am right, don’t run off trying to re-inflate yourself, just start mending the small pin prick holes today. Cause if you do that … well … you are back on the path to bursting with promise, dreams and shit. Ok. Maybe not all the way to that, but certainly reinflating some possibilities.

Ponder.

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“Success is a lousy teacher.  It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.”

Bill Gates

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“We’re all working together; that’s the secret.”

Sam Walton

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Original commenter:

It isn’t scientists’ role to package facts and theory for the general public, let alone the most willfully ignorant.

Response commenter:

Surely scientists have some responsibility to make their findings understandable to the public?

Otherwise how do their findings get incorporated into policy?

====================

With so much discussion going on about “the working class” it may become easy to ignore the implicit backlash against ‘intellectualism’ or ‘the out-of-touch elite.’

I do not believe there is an anti-intellectualism crisis.

I do not believe we have reached an era where any influencers who are smart, or intellectual, are dismissed as the reigning voices of truth & expertise.

But.

I do know that elites, or so-called elites, are despised and the opinions of experts are disregarded in favor of emotions or gut feelings, i.e., feelings are as important, if not more important, than facts.

And I do know that Michael Gove once said “people have had enough of experts.”

Whew.

Not only is that a bullshit quote; it is a scary thought.

Look. I could walk into a crowded blue collar bar and after some discussion I could be construed as ‘thinker not doer’, uhm, despite the fact I have over 30 years of doing practical experience.

And therein lies the issue.

Depending on how you articulate your experience you can sound intellectually elitist <too smart for your own good> or you can sound pragmatically hard working. And within those two bookends is a fairly wide spectrum.

In fact. It is within that wide spectrum where there has become a blurring of … well … everything actually, but, in this case, true experience & expertise and ‘elitism.’

This is creating a horrible thing in society and our culture.

If you have gobs of experience, you are labeled as out of touch with the everyday schmuck.

If you are an everyday schmuck you are immediately labeled as anti-intellectual and, far too often, less educated.

This is a horrible situation for everyone <because no one wins>.

Simplistically education and experience are two different things. We should certainly value education wisdom, but it shouldn’t diminish experience wisdom <and vice versa>.

And that is where the whole communication and communicating aspect comes into play.

For if neither side can clearly communicate their value then, unfortunately, everyone assumes the worst.

It would be far too easy for me to suggest that if someone has the experience, and the wisdom that comes with it, they should be able to articulate it and communicate it in a way that anyone would not feel condescended to or diminished or simply out-of-touch with either hard working or ‘thinker’.

But experience doesn’t necessarily translate into effective communication. Effective communication is a skill, and an art, in and of itself.

But this gets even more challenging when both sides have a pair of perception filtered glasses on as they view the opposite they are seeking to communicate with.

My prime example is easy – climate change.

The simple fact is that climate activists cannot sell their story effectively. Typically they fall back on … well … facts and numbers. This is deemed as ‘arrogance’ especially because they get frustrated you don’t see the truth in the numbers <which seems obvious to them> and you are deemed ‘ignorant’ as you get frustrated because you aren’t a scientist and don’t want to extrapolate numbers — you just want a simple truthful story.

Even non-science people  recognize that cherry-picked statistics and trends & projections are not the same as long-term accurate predictions and effects. But if the case is so strong it must be possible to bring it forth in a compelling way combined with compelling measures to address it.

That said.

The most egregious act with regard to elitism versus experience actually takes place when people smart enough to know undermine other people smart enough to know within the leadership we seek to take our cues from <or let’s label them what the everyday schmuck would call ‘the ruling intellectual elite’>. This ‘people smart enough to know better’ battle is a devil’s bargain with desire to being valued. The problem is by diminishing the value of their ‘competitor’ they actually undermining all value and, well, everyone’s value. Some would suggest this is ‘not seeing the forest for the trees.’

I would suggest this is actually a doom loop. If every day people have no one to trust with regard to their experience, they become anxious. And, then, in this state of anxiety, many of those same people no longer trust the experts <let alone anyone attempting to lead by thought leadership>. If you cannot trust experience it all falls apart because then gaining experience just doesn’t matter <or specific experience doesn’t matter>.

In addition it seems to foster an environment in which individual thinking is discouraged, the value of scientific/researched fact is diminished and, contrary to belief, the power shifts to some authority figure who leads through opinion rather than fact <and people follow off of ‘feelings’ rather than truth because feelings have become equal to facts>.

That said, all things being equal, it means this issue comes down to its most basic level <a real divide of ‘us versus them’>.

Here is where the biggest gap in skills & experience exists.

Survival skills.

Survival in corporate America is significantly different than survival in … well … let’s call it basic survival.

If all of urban/suburban America lost their microwaves and fast food restaurants … well … they would be screwed.

Sure.

Most people know how to light a fire <with a match>, wash underwear and make soup, but that basic skill set is not even close to the survival skills of the majority of the world let alone rural America.

Therefore, experience is measured in two different ways: basic survival versus ‘elitist’ survival. And neither side values the other’s skills equally, or maybe worse, they devalue the other’s skill set.

It’s a dangerous state of affairs.

We are shortchanging our ability to shape events by having each side believe they are the only ones capable of shaping the events.

We are shortchanging the people who are much more confident in the assessments of what to do and when to do it.

We are shortchanging the people who understand that in any situation and in any choice there are winners and losers and just because you may have lost doesn’t make you a loser.

And, of course, we shortchange the people who don’t have the experience to lead by undervaluing the experience that they do have and what they have to offer in terms of thinking & ideas.

We don’t know what we don’t know.

And in those words of wisdom resides our biggest challenge with regard to this crisis of elitism versus experience. We need to figure out how to better articulate expertism and experience because if we do not the inexperienced will seek to take on the responsibilities of the experienced … and we will be doomed to fail.

Ponder.

=============

“The pen may indeed be mightier than the sword, but the wordsmith would do well to welcome the blacksmith back into the fold, so that artisan craftsmanship the world over may fend off the ravages of industrialised homogeneity and bland monoculture.”

Alex Morritt

============

“I’m only good at being young

So I play the numbers game to find a way to say that life has just begun …

I can’t take the speed it’s moving in

I know I can’t but honestly won’t someone stop this train …”

John Mayer

<from the song Stop this Train>

——–

“I think about dying but I don’t want to die.

Not even close.

In fact my problem is the complete opposite.

I want to live, I want to escape.

I feel trapped and bored and claustrophobic.

There’s so much to see and so much to do but I somehow still find myself doing nothing at all.

I’m still here in this metaphorical bubble of existence and I can’t quite figure out what the hell I’m doing or how to get out of it. “

Matty Healy

————

fictional undertaker David Fisher from Six Feet Under response to a mourner’s desperate question:

“Why does there have to be death?”

“Because it makes life important.”

====

Aging. Or. Without all the political correctness and ‘thinking positively’ mumbo jumbo — getting old. Every time I hear John Mayer’s song “stop this train” <which is actually a fabulous song> it makes me think of getting older … oops … aging.

———

“… once in a while when it’s good

It’ll feel like it should.

And they’re all still around

And you’re still safe and sound

And you don’t miss a thing …”

——–

Aging seems relevant to write about as today is my birthday. Aging is tricky <physically> as well as tricky topic <to discuss>. And let me be clear — aging is personal.

Personal in how you deal with it with regard to your parents <watching them getting older & dealing with it>.

Personal in how you deal with it, well, with regard to yourself.

The former I have written about: dealing with aging parents. The latter is what I am discussing today – personal in dealing with aging or, I imagine, myself dealing with it. I am old, but I am not old. Let me explain.

As I think of aging I sometimes worry that there is all this incessant tripe of ‘you are only as old as you feel’ or ‘age is just a number’, but then I stop worrying because it is simply just window dressing on the fact everyone who is getting older already truly knows in their heart of hearts — it is not about your attitude or how you think about it, you just have to “nut up” <as Lemon says on 30Rock> or “deal” with getting older.

Yup.

You just gotta deal with it.

You can try and ignore it. But as you age you mostly just try and, well, not reverse it, but maybe pause it on occassion, or maybe even stop it <for a while as in moments or ‘a day’>.

I will admit in many of my writings I have noted that it is often suggested the older 50something generation is narcissistic, heck, I even suggested they ruined business, but at minimum the older generation <mine> seems to constantly seek ways to regain youth or find ways to turn back the in some fairly ludicrous embarrassing ways.

But, in thinking about it, I would actually argue that most of us simply want to ‘stop this train’ and renegotiate some things. Not really stop the clock as in simply stop aging, but maybe pause some things on occasion. I say that because most of us don’t mind aging and being older, we just don’t like the inevitable degradation in our lives. And what I mean by that is it seems like aging becomes more tangible in the diminishing physical rather than mental.

In fact. Mentally we become smarter and more knowledgeable and many actually become ‘wiser.’ It is just that the body just cannot do the same things it did before. Yeah. The body just doesn’t ‘show up’ every day.

What I mean by that is there are days as a 50something when everything is aligned physically – less aches, more energy, feel sharp, etc. – and, well, ‘once in a while its good … it feels like it should.’

We embrace those days. We want the train to maybe stop there for a little while.

I truly believe most of us do not want to regain youth or even recapture the trappings of youth <I certainly don’t>, we simply want to pause the clock at certain moments at this stage in our lives.

We do not hate age.

We do not regret aging.

But, let me be clear, despite all the tripe you find in gobs of articles and books … we are also not embracing aging. I am fine, and comfortable, in my age but that doesn’t mean I love all aspects of aging and I am certainly not embracing the additional years.

I would actually argue that most of us simply have a desire to embrace the <or ‘a’> moment.

And by embracing the moment I mean the present — not the past. But to suggest this is an easy topic is foolish. While I may have come to grips with aging all you have to do is scan publications to see some fairly absurd perspectives on getting older:

No one is ever old in their own heads. There may be fleeting moments of self-recognition – the inward flinch at the thought of wearing heels, the choice of bodyboarding over learning to kite surf, or looking at the snow and instead of thinking about sledging, wondering about falling.

Otherwise, 60 is the new 40, first-time mothers in their 50s are pushing swings in many a playground, and there is a category in the ironman world championship for any woman between the ages of 70 and 74 who enjoys extreme cycling, swimming and marathon running.

There’s nothing new about acting as old as you feel, except that it has suddenly become universally acceptable.

A generation ago, marriage was the launchpad into the life of the middle-aged. Where now women in their 60s wear their children’s clothes, then women in their 40s adopted their mothers’ wardrobes.

Getting old was respectable, and living in denial was looked on with pity.  For these new gerontocrats, living into their 80s and 90s has come as a surprise and not necessarily a good one.

Ann Perkins <The Guardian>

—-

This means my whole point of ’embracing the moment’ can be challenging because society, media and culture is banging us over the head with images and words telling us how we SHOULD be thinking about it.

Oddly shows like Mad Men and other period pieces and even Friends make many older people nostalgic for aspects of past.

In those moments of reflection we sometimes wish we could have ‘stopped that train’ on those aspects at those times. Maybe have recognized them and enjoyed them a little more.

I think it is human that all of us, all the time, at all and any age, find and see things about ourselves and some specific time in our Life we would like to ‘stop,’ keep that one aspect and that one feeling for, well, forever <or that’s how we feel at that moment>.

That is Life.

Aging is kind of the same.

Now, because Life is, well, Life; aging is about getting older. Yeah. I said it. Deal with it.

This means we renegotiate some things because the train doesn’t really stop. The struggle within ourselves often resides in that renegotiation there is an inevitable bit of anxiety. Anxiety because you realize renegotiation is finite. And that is where aging becomes challenging.

———

“I am incapable of conceiving infinity, and yet I do not accept finity.

I want this adventure that is the context of my life to go on without end.”

Simone de Beauvoir

——-

 We are incapable of accepting infinity <because we know there is an end> and yet we balk at ‘finity.’ Therefore. While age is a number and the past can make us nostalgic inevitably we, the aging, measure Life in present moments and ‘adventures’ <accumulating finite-y type things>

I say that because it can become easy to get caught up in ‘youth invigorates’ , but it is more than that. It is … well … as stated earlier … it is personal.

Age, and reflection, often cannot give you some flash of insight that differentiates your life and makes it seem like a worthwhile venture. It is only within the moment, when it all feels right, where behavior is instinctively good, that we have the sense of mortality <i.e., this doesn’t happen as often as it used to> and immortality <i.e., I want this feeling to last forever>. Yeah. That’s an odd <paradox> of aging — the moments of ‘really good’ are actually the moments in which you most recognize your mortality. This ‘within the moment’ thing inevitably means that part of growing old is not really knowing what’s going to happen next to you in life and therefore seeking to savor “what is.”

I kind of believe maybe it is human nature to want time to slow down for things to stop happening so quickly … so maybe it slows down what you cannot see happening next. And as we try and slow things down we have a natural tendency to look backwards a little. Kind of look in the rear view mirror.

———

And I think of the years ..…. and the love that I’ve known.

I’m now an old man …….. and nature is cruel.

It’s jest to make old age ……. look like a fool.

The body, it crumbles ……. grace and vigor, depart.

There is now a stone ……. where I once had a heart.

But inside this old carcass …….a young man still dwell.

————

I imagine the challenge with age is that because more time now resides in the past … there is more to reflect upon … and as we reflect we realize some ‘young’ still dwells within.  To be clear. This doesn’t mean living in the past, or having regrets, it is more about … well … stopping this train so you can have more time in the now, in the present — to ‘do.’

And ‘do’ is the right word because we realize it’s not really about the spectacular or the glamorous — it’s about the moments & experiences we collect. The truth is that most of Life, and our lives, are rarely glamorous. And because most of us recognize that we tend to treasure the moments when everything ‘feels right’.

Oh. And I also tend to believe we start treasuring the right attitude.

I found this on a really neat Australian tumblr site <called MadisonLouise I think> with the picture I have here:

—–

“Surely, the solution to rainy day tram gloominess is to approach extravagantly-dressed elderly passengers for portraits.

This lady stepped onto the tram and I gestured to take a picture, eventually opening a dialogue about her modelling career in her youth which she was more than happy to announce to the full tram.

Shortly after, a character from Glasgow hopped on and tried to photo-bomb, so I took his portrait too and rode the rest of the way chatting to the pair of exuberant strangers.

I was interested to see how this impromptu shoot and social exchange effectively broke the ice and turned the stale, rigid and compartmentalised tram environment into something that more closely resembles the intended human experience.

Four strangers sitting in a booth opposite me began smiling at each other and chatting, while the people behind me tore their eyes away from their phones and elongated their hunched necks, if only for just a second.”

tumblr photographer

—-

The young dwells within. And that is the attitude. And most of us ‘we’ ,who are aging, keep this little secret inside us.

Sure. Sometimes someone comes along <like the story above> and as strangers make our young come out and play. Play if but for a moment.

Sigh.

“If but for a moment.”

No matter what anyone verbalizes … mentally … aging is not easy. Despite what 50somethngs or 60somethings say about ‘embracing age’ and ‘I feel more alive than I have ever felt’ … well … it is simply not true.

Trite & untrue.

I hesitate to say it is lack of acceptance. Conversely I don’t think it is rejection <fighting it>. Aging is somewhere in between “maximize what is left and minimizing what is wrong.” It’s like the train stops at a station you like and while you would love the train to stay stopped you know it will not and you make the most of the time it has stopped. To be clear. This does not mean we do not like aspects of being older just that many of the things we like about being older would have been nice to enjoy when we were younger <that is a subtle truism I believe most aging people would accept in some version>.

I have often expressed my belief about the strong link between acceptance and the need to control. In other words, the more we accept things as they are the less we need to control. And, conversely, the more controlling we are, the less accepting we are.

Which leads me to how acceptance and aging is important.

We obsess less about things over which we are effectively powerless. We are able to “see” practical options that lessen life’s adversities. We tend to be happier and tend to be more pleasant <less curmudgeonly>. Not surprising, an Australian study published in the Journal of Happiness concluded:

Accepting what can’t be changed is the key to happiness in old age.

Maybe what acceptance does is permits us to enjoy the good moments a little more. Not nostalgically but in the present. You actually think about maximizing the moment. Because you know it is there <it feels right & good> and you know it will not be there <maybe tomorrow if not even later the same day> and you know it will be there again <maybe not until next week … but it will be there>.

Acceptance is kind of a freedom.

Yup.

There is a freedom in admitting to yourself that you are middle aged <or older>. You can do what you want when you feel like doing it <within reason>.

Oh.

Here is a tip to those who are beginning to think about this whole aging thing.

Instead of exercise and taking some magical pills which have some dubious promises of youth … try reading. There is some research supporting some surprising health benefits of reading.

–      A 2009 study showed that reading for only six minutes can reduce stress by 68 percent, as well as slow your heart rate and minimize muscle tension.

–      Reading improves memory. In addition, another study showed that elderly people who read regularly are 2.5 times less likely to get Alzheimer’s disease.

–      Of course you can’t stop the aging process but reading can help slow it down. A study showed that reading can significantly reduce your rate of cognitive decline.

–      It can be stressful not knowing the future. One study showed that reading fiction can cause an increase in tolerance for uncertainty. As people read their minds actually open up and they become more comfortable with possibilities, options, and uncertainty.

Reading can really improve your health and life and helps slow down the train <at least mentally>.

Anyway. Life always changes. One year, or period of time, may seem ‘so much’ versus another. That may be so, but the train really never stops until it … well … stops. And it really rarely slows down. The train keeps chugging along, scenery changes, people change, life changes. Inevitability.

So much versus so little with regard to change is simply words we attach to the inevitable.

Ah. But the truly inevitable?

Every time you wish time stops or wanna go back a bit, despite the temptation to do so, for many of us <I included> something in our heads always keeps saying ‘keep moving.’

As John Mayer mentioned once when playing in concert:

==

“i have no idea how i’m going to play this live, because it’s definitely the most emotionally confrontational song for me….ya know, time is moving forward, all the time, and we know that, but..its kind of like running out of a continually burning hallway- and you can’t go back and get your stuff. and all i wanna do is yell, ‘i wanna go get my stuff!’, but people are going, ‘you can’t! keep running!!’. and this fireball’s coming up behind you, well it’s not exactly as indiana jones as that, but it feels like that sometimes… so this is a song begging to go back and uhh, it’s called ‘stop this train.'”

==

Look. Anyone older, or aging, doesn’t have to agree with what i have said so far, but, I feel relatively confident that whether we admit it or not, whether we actually do like ourselves as an older version, at some point, at some time, we want to ‘stop this train.’

It’s human.

The years start adding up and it is kind of silly to ignore that fact.

From a personal perspective it just means that all the things I believe I have left to do need to get crammed into fewer moments in time. That is what aging means to me.  In my mind it is now about maximizing the moments especially the ones when the train has stopped for me. I really don’t want to stop this train, but I do see the train moving and do recognize that when it stops, its time for me to not stop.

=======THE SONG========

Stop This Train by John Mayer

—–

No I’m not color blind
I know the world is black and white
Try to keep an open mind but…
I just can’t sleep on this tonight
Stop this train I want to get off and go home again
I can’t take the speed it’s moving in
I know I can’t
But honestly won’t someone stop this train

Don’t know how else to say it, don’t want to see my parents go
One generation’s length away
From fighting life out on my own

Stop this train
I want to get off and go home again
I can’t take the speed it’s moving in
I know I can’t but honestly won’t someone stop this train

So scared of getting older
I’m only good at being young
So I play the numbers game to find away to say that life has just begun
Had a talk with my old man
Said help me understand
He said turn 68, you’ll renegotiate
Don’t stop this train
Don’t for a minute change the place you’re in
Don’t think I couldn’t ever understand
I tried my hand
John, honestly we’ll never stop this train

See once in a while when it’s good
It’ll feel like it should
And they’re all still around
And you’re still safe and sound
And you don’t miss a thing
’til you cry when you’re driving away in the dark.

Singing stop this train I want to get off and go home again
I can’t take this speed it’s moving in
I know I can’t
Cause now I see I’ll never stop this train

<

p style=”text-align: center;”>====================

======
“A book should be an axe to break the frozen sea within us.” 

= 

Kafka 

—— 

“Then I let the stories live
inside my head, again and again
until the real world fades back
into cricket lullabies
and my own dreams.”

=

Jacqueline Woodson

——

eternal-books:

EBOOKS ARE BOOKS.

AUDIO BOOKS ARE BOOKS.

PAPERBACKS ARE BOOKS.

HARDCOVERS ARE BOOKS.

BOOKS ARE GREAT.

DO I NEED TO REPEAT MYSELF??

—–

“Reading, which was in decline due to the growth of television, tripled from 1980 to 2008, because it is the overwhelmingly preferred way to receive words on the Internet.”

=

University of California at San Diego study

————————————

…. an axe to break the frozen sea within us.

Whew.

When I first read those words I thought … well … have there ever been better words to describe a book.

Which leads me to a confession. I love about books & reading.

——–

I have always been a reader; I have read at every stage of my life and there has never been a time when reading was not my greatest joy.

And yet I cannot pretend that the reading I have done in my adult years matches in its impact on my soul the reading I did as a child.

The Thirteenth Tale” by Diane Setterfield

——

That is I, therefore, clearly. I am a book reader.

Well. No. I am a book lover. I love the words.I love the thoughts they create. I love the paper stock and how it feels on the fingertips. I love a good book cover. I love BIG books.

==

“I’m a big believer in big books, and that doesn’t necessarily mean long books.”

Mark Z Danielewski

==

So I imagine when I write about books it has to encompass the books themselves and reading books and even collecting books on a shelf.

Look. I understand.

To some … reading is pleasure.

To some … reading is pain.

To some … yesterday’s generation was born with their nose in a book <and therefore better thinkers and speakers and literate than today’s generation>.

To some … today’s generation is … well … none of the thinkers, speakers, or even ‘literate’ as listed above … because they don’t read enough.

All that said, reading is reading and every generation has readers and nonreaders.

And while I love a paper book … I think it’s silly to judge e-book readers as anything but … well … book readers & lovers. A book is a book. Reading is reading. Words, well written, are well written words.

——–

“He reached out to stroke the spines of the books, as if they might whisper their secrets to him if he touched them.

But the books remained silent, as all good books tend to do when touched by people to whom they don’t belong.”

Christoph Marzi Heaven

——–

And while all readers have special books, the ones that whisper their secrets to us, I will be honest … I have never met a book that didn’t ‘belong’ to me.

They all whisper to me.

But I also understand that books mean different things to different people. Even between readers. One of my favorite tumblr blogs shared this break down of reader segments.

—-

Different Kinds of Readers

<from a-thousand-words blog>

– The Devourer:

Each book is a snack for this kind of reader–but it doesn’t mean that s/he won’t enjoy each book just as much.

– The Lover:

Books read by this kind of reader are read in hidden, stolen moments at the most unexpected times.

– The Slow Dancer:

Books are a treat that this kind of reader savors. Slow and steady wins this reader’s race, as his/her eyes take in and taste each and every word.

– The Addict:

Books are a conquest to this kind of reader. S/he will buy more books than s/he can read, but s/he will ALWAYS have something to read.

– The Classic:

Books of the past are a gift to this reader. Prose in the style of early contemporary authors, or stories written long ago, are favorites for this reader.

– The Die-Hard:

Genres are a way of life for this reader. S/he finds a niche and sticks to it–veering from what s/he knows for short bursts of time.

– The Advocate:

This reader is a lover of books. S/he is not just a reader, but an advocate of reading–hoping that the future will contain more readers.

—-

Readers and reading always revolves around the following discussion.

We read for three purposes … information, understanding and entertainment <some reading research expert wrote this>. And reading in today’s world is not about attention loss in the wake of technological gain <I do get so tired of old people’s lamenting about the Internet’s effects on our brains despite all the research to the contrary>:

———

“It’s not reasonable to think of technology — in the usual vaguely pejorative meaning of that term — as the enemy of reading.”

Alan Jacobs professor of English

——-

To be clear. Technology is not the enemy of reading. Technology has simply enabled a different source for reading.

And while reading is, and will always be, a work in progress … reading hasn’t lost the interest of those who care. And every generation will have those who care about reading … and those who will not. Today’s world is not a regression of anything that once was … it is simply a progression of what is.

Anyway.

Maybe because it is because giving a Kindle <or Nook> seems like the must thing to do these days.

Maybe it is because I just saw a study on book ownership & literacy.

Maybe because I tend to think reading <anything … not just books> is critical to fighting ignorance.

Maybe because of all that I am taking a moment to talk about children’s literacy and what is happening with books <and reading>.

Maybe because of all of that I want to share something written by a teenager:

——

A major source of confusion is the fact that information from reputable sources is increasingly available on the Internet, which is far more convenient to use than hauling your ass to a library, browsing through the book collection, finding a giant tome, browsing through it to find what you need, and then rinse and repeat.

We’re keeping up with the modern world. And we’re definitely reading. We’re just not reading on physical paper, which is apparently a crime against humanity or something.

Hell, we’re reading plenty of things on physical paper too. Just not what we “should” be reading according to these “Damned-Whippersnappers”-crying adults. We’re reading not only fiction and fantasy (Harry Potter, Hunger Games, etc.), but also memoirs (The Glass Castle and Night) and many other genres.

We’re reading, just not what and how you think we should.

—–

I include this because I see a boatload of research floating around the internet that suggests there is a concerning negative trend with regard to reading. There was one study that said almost 4 million children in Britain – one in three – do not own a book <and 12% have never been to a bookshop> and that the findings were very worrying because book ownership was linked to children’s future success in life. I imagine I take a pause in reading this because it is tied so closely to books and book ownership. I think that direct correlation or link suggests the wrong conclusion.

What do I mean? Young people are reading … maybe just not what or how we old folk want them to. What they do is read a lot … of what they want to read a lot of.

And that leads me to … uhm … pleasure.

People do things that they find pleasure in doing. There are a gazillion reasons that reading can matter but suffice it to say most of them are ‘do it because it is good for you’ type arguments.

And, by the way, that crap doesn’t persuade more young people to read for fun. Fun just cannot be positioned as a duty or responsibility. Fun is … well … fun. Fun as in a pleasurable and personal choice. Therefore persuasion to read doesn’t really exist it is the temptation … and inevitably reading because they want to not because they have to.

Ok. Back to facts <and this fun thing>. Children are reading from books and even computers less, but watching films and images on screens more.

Ok. The act of picking up a book may be in decline but the unquenchable thirst for knowledge is not lost. Let’s just say the tap has changed into a water bottle.

Looking at an old Wall Street Journal I read the following by Ann Patchett: I am a firm believer in the fact that it isn’t so much what you read that counts, it’s that you read … I’m all for reading bad books because I consider them to be a gateway drug. People who read bad books now may or may not read better books in the future. People who read nothing now will read nothing in the future.

Ann is correct. Reading matters. Any reading matters. Remember when comics were the evil empire against ‘real’ literature?

Well. This leads me to another piece of research <which does suggest we need young people to read more of useful type stuff>.

U.S. students missed large numbers of words they were expected to know on a new vocabulary section of a national exam <this is considered evidence of severe shortcomings in the nation’s reading education>. The results showed that nearly half of eighth-graders didn’t know that “permeates” means to “spread all the way through,” and about the same proportion of fourth-graders didn’t know that “puzzled” means confused—words that educators think students in those grades should recognize. Most fourth-graders did know the meaning of “created,” “spread” and “underestimate.” At eighth grade, most students knew “grimace,” “icons” and “edible.” This all leads me to suggest we need some fresh approaches to encourage young people to read more. Fortunately for me … smarter minds than I have noodled this question & issue.

Reluctant readers, to me, are those who haven’t found the right book at the right time yet. YALSA’s Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers list is a great source for finding books for these teens.

It’s important to encourage teens to read something that interests them, in any format that’s available — find out what a teen is passionate about and how he or she likes to read. What doesn’t really matter is how people choose to read…what matters is that people still choose to read … the choice of how they do it, paper or plastic or digital, does not matter.

Conventional wisdom holds that YouTube, videogames, cable TV and iPods have turned us away from written words. That “glowing streams of visual delights replaced paper and longhand letters shrank to bite-sized Facebook status updates.”

Well.

Conventional wisdom is wrong.

========

A large-scale study by the University of California at San Diego and other research universities revealed what some of us have long suspected: We’re reading far more words than we used to as we adopt new technologies.

Just look at Facebook and you can see that we’re almost certainly writing more than we used to. If you’re reading thousands of words a day on a variety of devices, paper included, you need as much help as you can get in deciding which words to read.

Ironically, the same technologies derided by some for contributing to a lack of literacy — Facebook and Twitter — are full of recommendations of things to read. Technology has actually made reading and writing even more essential parts of everyday life. Social mores surrounding the act of reading alone in public may be changing along with increased popularity.

Suddenly, the lone, unapproachable reader at the corner table seems less alone.  Given that some e-readers can display books while connecting online, there’s a chance the erstwhile bookworm is already plugged into a conversation somewhere,

—

Paul Levinson, professor of communication and media studies at Fordham University.

========

For many, e-readers are today’s must-have accessory, eroding old notions of what being bookish might have meant.

“Buying literature has become cool again.”

Ah. And then there is this one bonehead … Jonathan Franzen … and his fear that ebooks will have a detrimental effect on the world – and his belief that serious readers will always prefer print editions.

This guy is frickin’ nuts.

Serious readers read. That would be a definition of a serious reader. The vehicle in which the words appear before a reader is irrelevant. He argues that for serious readers “a sense of permanence has always been part of the experience”:

“Everything else in your life is fluid, but here is this text that doesn’t change.

Will there still be readers 50 years from now who feel that way? Who have that hunger for something permanent and unalterable?  I don’t have a crystal ball.

But I do fear that it’s going to be very hard to make the world work if there’s no permanence like that. That kind of radical contingency is not compatible with a system of justice or responsible self-government.”

This kook also said: “it’s doubtful that anyone with an internet connection at his workplace is writing good fiction.”

<insert: “what a stupid fuck” here from me>

Ok.

That is crazy. Those words are nuts. And, in fact, slightly silly <although, scarily, the words are coming from what some in today’s world consider a ‘real thinker’>.

Real things will always exist.

Real writers will always exist (and will either embrace the fragmentation or will simply be one f thise who can tune it out).

Real readers will always exist <and read whatever is put in front of them in whatever form it appears in … as long as it is worth reading>.

This guy associated the internet, and computer, as impermanence.

“Someone worked really hard to make the language just right, just the way they wanted it. They were so sure of it that they printed it in ink, on paper. A screen always feels like we could delete that, change that, move it around. So for a literature-crazed person like me, it’s just not permanent enough.”

And, frankly, this type of drivel drives me nuts … and drives young people nuts. Putting that wackjob thinking in my rear view mirror … let me share some truth <and good news>. Today’s teens are avid readers and prolific writers. Just different than what that reading & writing has looked like in the past.

But.

Half of today’s teenagers don’t read books—except when they’re made to. According to the most recent survey by the National Endowment for the Arts, the proportion of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 who read a book not required at school or at work is now 50.7%, the lowest for any adult age group younger than 75, and down from 59% 20 years ago. Back in 2004, when the NEA last looked at younger readers’ habits, it was already the case that fewer than one in three 13-year-olds read for pleasure every day. The only thing that really concerns me is that the fact that 2/3rd of college freshmen read for pleasure for less than an hour per week.

And a third of seniors don’t read for pleasure at all. And the number of 17-year-olds who never read for pleasure increased to 19% in 2004 from 9% in 1984. And almost half of Americans between ages 18 and 24 never read books for fun.

It this ‘lack of pleasure’ concerns me because I believe books are to be enjoyed.

Shit. I believe words are to be enjoyed. I cannot fathom anyone not appreciating ‘good words.’ While I am most likely naïve on this issue … I tend to believe those who find reading painful just have not found words that give pleasure. And they are out there yet to be found if only they would seek <or someone would put them in front of them>.

A person with no books … well … as one storyteller said … “a person with no books is inconsequential in today’s world. But. Without books how can we identify the inconsequential from the meaningful?”

Anyway.

What is a book? It is an axe to break the frozen sea within us. It is an agent of change.

—–

One must always be careful of books,” said Tessa, “and what is inside them, for words have the power to change us.”

Cassandra Clare

——

What is a book?

Well.

I will dispense with all the descriptors and pompous standpoints and simply suggest … a book is simply something consequential. And we all need consequential things in our lives.

I think I could write about books and reading every day.

And today I will focus more on bookshelves <but still throw in some thoughts on reading>.

I know I could never run out of fabulous quotes and thoughts about reading & books.

—

“Then I let the stories live

inside my head, again and again

until the real world fades back

into cricket lullabies

and my own dreams.”

=

Jacqueline Woodson, brown girl dreaming

—

“You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads … may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days.

And out of that love, remake a world.”

=

Ray Bradbury

—

 

“We willingly enter fictional worlds where we cheer our heroes and cry for friends we never had.”

 

=

Marco Tempest

—

And while I never tire of talking about books let me note that I absolutely love looking at bookshelves wherever I go.

Bookshelves speak.

They speak for their owners.

The fake books?

Hollow.

The new books never opened?

Posers.

The old well worn books?

Respectful.

Business people have business books and dreamers have novels & poetry and revolutionaries have books overthrowing the oppressors.

I love my books, even the ones that have gone yellow and slightly worse for wear.

What does my bookshelf say about me? Beyond the fact I absolutely need to dust more often … I am not sure … other than I love books.

In fact … rather than describe it myself found a blog where someone wrote out how I feel perfectly:

==

hersweetwords:

She ran the back of her hand along the first shelf, listening to the shuffle of her fingernails gliding across the spinal cord of each book.

It sounded like an instrument, or the notes of running feet.

She used both hands.

She raced them.

One shelf against the other.

And she laughed.

—

I sigh almost every time I read those words.

All books on a bookshelf should bring forth music in the mind.

And as you look at someone’s bookshelf … hold yourself back from scoffing <I just wanted to type that word> at some of the titles because … well … any & all books read are worth reading.

And all that crap about ‘reading crappy books versus good serous books’ … well … its crap.

Reading remakes the mind. And that means any reading.

I had this ‘any reading’ debate in a TED discussion and while I was getting lambasted by a bunch of pretentious blowhards … I got saved by one PhD:

——

Ok, I PROMISED myself to not get involved “reading” one more group discussion….but… I don’t even know where to begin with this one.

I have a PhD in reading. Not that this necessarily means I’m smart, it’s just that I’ve studied and continue to study reading.

So here goes…it doesn’t matter what a person reads, in what form, by which author, on which device.

Reading is reading.

I challenge all of you to check out from the library a picture book by Chris Van Allsburg entitled The Wretched Stone. WAIT…it’s a picture book. Ok, the first person who can tell me what, who, etc. the stone represents wins.

I’m a reading consultant hired by school districts to show teachers how to teach reading. I use this book and the participants can’t come up with a thought.

Notice I didn’t say answer. I said thought.

If our educators don’t read and think what’s going to happen to our kids in school today? Send a note to your child’s teacher asking them to recommend a book for YOU to read.

Let me know what happens.

My first “Crayola secret” for you is that we all read on 4 different levels: instructional, informational, recreational and frustrational.

Not any one is better than the other.

Just read.

Does this discussion make you think, connects you to a past experience, wants you to get together with the rest of us to discuss?

The definition of comprehension?

It’s still being worked on.

No one, not even the experts and researchers, can seem to agree.

–

Marti Dryk, PhD

===

Bottom line.

Reading is good … in any form or fashion.

And that is why I love bookshelves.

Only a bookshelf can truly hold a reader’s history and future at the same time <I am fairly sure the present is usually found in a book bag or next to the bed>.

Bookshelves help us comprehend the person. It gives us a glimpse of who they are … not just how they think. And bookshelves are clearly a reflection of the fact they think about something.

—

A lifelong reader myself, I’ve always had an obsession with seeing a person’s bookshelf, to get a sense of what they’ve brought inside their home and their head.

Bookshelves are universal in that almost everyone has one, and unique in that no two collections are the same.

They reflect much more than just the book-buying habits of their owner.

Titles are easy to acquire and even easier to sell off or leave behind, so if it’s worthy of your shelf space, I want to know why. Your bookshelf is an intimate physical representation of your accomplishments (titles as trophies earned), aspirations (that ever growing to-read pile), associations (that book your boss gave to each employee), personal development (those self-help titles that urged you to talk to strangers), guilty pleasures (50 shades of beach reads), escapes (sci-fi to some, travelogues to others), memories (meeting that author, visiting that indie shop on vacation), interests (the bigger the Star Wars fan, the more Star Wars books) and countless other tells that another reader would unconsciously and immediately compare against their own shelf.

And that’s just the ingredients – how you organise, arrange, and display these titles should impart even more insight as to a reader’s personality.

A bookshelf’s organisation, or lack thereof, can show that practicality and discoverability is the priority when shelved alphabetically by author (as is the traditional way). But if it’s arranged by colour or trim size of the book spines, the owner obviously prizes appearance and display above finding the right title quickly.

More likely the shelf is representative of how the reader sees their own collection: frequent favourites at eye level, grouped together according to genre/topic/theme and other commonalities. I imagine each section, as its own book club where a title relates to the ones around it, clustering authors that would have a lot to discuss among themselves.

—–

That said.

Some people’s bookshelves sometimes look like … well … a display of accomplishments.

And, to me, reading should be more a pleasure than an accomplishment.

A bookshelf shouldn’t be a reflection of ‘list of books I have read’ but instead a ‘list of books I loved.’

As I write that I think about this gizmo company called Spritz.

—–

How To Read A 223-Page Novel In Just 77 Minutes

===

Spritz is a company that makes a speed-reading technology which allows you to get through a mass of text, reading every word, in a fraction of the time it would take if you were turning the pages of a book or swiping through a Kindle.

The basis of Spritz concept is that much of the time spend reading is “wasted” on moving your eyes from side to side, from one word to the next. By flashing the words quickly, one after the other, all in the same place, eye movement is reduced almost to zero. All that’s left is the time you take to process the word before the next one appears.

—–

Look.

I have nothing against Spritz. They probably know their shit.

What I have a problem with is that this isn’t reading for pleasure.

And while someone may suggest that I have my criteria screwed up I would argue that research shows when something is pleasurable it is more likely to be remembered and absorbed in the mind <that would be cognitive learning I believe>.

Therefore … when it comes to books & reading it seems like the goal should be to insure that as many people as possible at least like reading … if not have a love for reading as they go about their lives. Pleasure rather than how fast they read books.

And it seems like it should be easier to share this whole ‘reading is pleasurable’ because I cannot think of one person who doesn’t like the concept of traveling.

And I am selling ‘traveling’ not reading.

———–

“Reading makes immigrants of us all.

It takes us away from home, but more important, it finds homes for us everywhere.”

=

Jean Rhys

–

—

–

“The more that you read, the more things you will know.

The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”

=

Dr. Seuss

—

I will never stop trying to get people to understand that reading is a type of traveling. Not just to places but also to spaces in the mind.

==

Past words I have written about reading:

—

https://brucemctague.com/travels-of-reading-part-1

<actual benefits of reading & thinking>

–

https://brucemctague.com/travels-of-reading-part-2

<don’t abuse your love for reading>

==

I have written far too much, and too often, about how all the words & thinking travel throughout the head all the while expanding the mind <because the mind is like a muscle> and the fact it also impacts cognitive thinking and comprehension.

Therefore … getting back to bookshelves … bookshelves show us where someone’s mind has traveled.

Oh.

By the way.

Any and all traveling is good.

In other words … you cannot have a crappy bookshelf.

The kind of communications & thinking skills people learn which they can apply in Life <intelligently interpreting to cogently arguing> can be built from all kinds of ‘texts’ <words> … from illustrated comic books to television advertisements, from popular crime thrillers to science fiction and fantasy novels, from op-ed style essays to the writings of sports columnists and political bloggers.

There is no formula.

If someone is interested in science they can read a selection or collection of essays by Stephen Jay Gould or maybe read the content about a particular topic, like climate change, shared in the Guardian.

If someone loves a particular sport they can read something about that sport, whether that be daily news articles about a particular team, or biographies or autobiographies of players, or histories of the game.

All I know is that with every word you read you gain the opportunity to remake the world in your head.

Anyway.

Enough about reading, traveling and bookshelves.

It is difficult for me, as a lover of reading, to believe someone does not love reading.

It is almost incomprehensible to me.

What helps me sleep at night ? <assuming I can put a book down and sleep>
I feel like loving to read at least gives me a glimmer of hope of ending up in heaven.

————-

“I have sometimes dreamt, at least, that when the Day of Judgment dawns and the great conquerors and lawyers and statesmen come to receive their rewards — their crowns, their laurels, their names carved indelibly upon imperishable marble—the Almighty will turn to Peter and will say, not without a certain envy when he sees us coming with our books under our arms …

‘Look, these need no reward. We have nothing to give them here. They have loved reading’.”

=

Virginia Woolf

“How Should One Read a Book?”

—-

And, of course, my version of heaven has books.

===

“Maybe Heaven will be a library.

Then I will be able to finish my to-read list.”

–

Kellie Elmore

===

Thank you for letting me ramble about books and bookshelves and reading today.

And maybe you will take a minute and look at bookshelves a little differently now.

Here is what I do know.

I will keep sharing thoughts because remaking how you think & what you think is a topic always worth discussing.

And that is what reading is all about.

“You get a little moody sometimes but I think that’s because you like to read.

People that like to read are always a little fucked up.”

=

Pat Conroy

—–

“Think of yourself as a curiosity fulfillment teacher.”

=

Me

—————

This is a follow up to my reading part 1 <which was serious about the importance of reading>.

This is more a rant <and a warning> on how people who love to read tend to abuse their joy of reading.

This rant possibly provides a counterbalance to my disdain for people who waste the opportunity to permit their minds to travel through reading … which is a luxury everyone can afford and has access to regardless of budget.

So.

Abuse love of reading?

‘Reading lovers’ can take some things to absurd levels <simply because they read>. Things like:

being overly pretentious.

being sickeningly pompous.

In general … just treating people who don’t read <or are not “well read”> as some type of lesser being. Everyone should note that the ‘pompous reader’  can do this overtly or in sneaky, but still pompous, ways.

Oh.

And then there is the perpetual idiotic rephrasing or quoting of literature <rather than seek their own words>.

Using quotes can be lazy.

Just as using any words of others can be lazy.

For reading is only good if you are using it to increase your own intellectual thinking.

And to come up with your own ideas.

And to express your own thoughts and ideas better,

Sure.

I have noted that reading is traveling … as in ‘traveling through other people’s thoughts and ideas.’

And, sure, it is okay to show pictures of your trips and travels … but … you don’t want to read from the guidebooks as you tell everyone about the trip. People want to hear your thoughts and experience it through your eyes and words.

Uhm.

Yeah.

I am certainly a lover of a well crafted written thought. That poetic turn of phrase. Even that full chapter of prose that when it ends you finally exhale. And then only to turn back upon on some pages and reread something because the way the words have been put together it stirs something inside you … it could be your soul … it could be your mind  … it could just be ‘something’ but those words have created an imprint upon you.

But.

The imprint is often best used in your own words when shared.

Do I use quotes or literary references?

Sure. You bet I do.

Do I use them to replace my own words?

Rarely.

I use someone else’s words to either emphasize my own thoughts or introduce my thoughts or <in a business environment> to honestly “steal a moment.”

‘stealing a moment’ definition:

… that would be when the meeting is spinning in a direction and you cannot seem to stem the stream of unfocused idiocy spewing forth and you grab an appropriate quote out of your memory banks – because frankly your own words haven’t done shit to steer everyone away from whatever the hell it is they are saying – and you grandly toss someone else’s words out into the air.

That, my friends, is the art of stealing a moment with a quote.

Anyway.

Reading is useful only when … well .. you make it useful.

Reading and learning and saying nothing is a waste.

Reading so you don’t have to do your own thinking is a waste.

Reading to solely use other people words is a waste.

Reading to simply say things to show you are better and smarter (well, maybe more ‘well read’) is a waste.

Oh.

And not reading is the worst waste.

Beyond my quote/using others words rant.

If you are a reader and love books?

Don’t abuse your love for reading.

Don’t just talk but listen.

And share after listening.

Your attitude with what you have gained from reading can either encourage someone to pick up a book or discourage some from reading.

If you love to read, you are an ambassador for reading and need to think of yourself as such.

Think of yourself as a curiosity fulfillment teacher.

Think of it as your own personal “no person left behind” program.

Advocate reading don’t belittle someone who doesn’t.

And if you struggle to figure out how to encourage someone to read?

Try out this thought <this is me stealing someone else’s words>:

“This is my report on the importance of knowing how to read.

If you can’t read and you get a love letter, you won’t know what it says.

That would be very sad.

Although in the long run, it also could save you a lot of trouble.”

–

Charles Schultz