I’m glad you’re going to cover this topic. I’ve seen that article, “The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read” referenced nearly everywhere. It seems that the article struck a chord with many (or maybe it’s the internet bubble I’m in).
Looking forward to seeing what your guest writers have to say.
Love Olivia's suggestion for War and Peace. Hey, the three-volume novel! Love all your work, JSR and friends, please don't be put off, express yourselves freely and beautifully.
If I have a beef about the state of reading, it's the overwhelmingly anglophilic literary taste reflected on Substack--a paradox in an era when globalization should lead us far beyond the edges of our native tongue.
Will this series cross over into the Symposion? Given that auditory mode, discussion of literacy could seem counterintuitive but also, maybe, apt: orality may have turbocharged with the explosion of podcasting (with hearing podcasts functioning in lieu of reading reports or books).
Perhaps you'll recall, that evening at the American Library in Paris, someone else accusing us, as authors of In Search of the Third Bird --which you call “brilliant”-- of contributing to the atmosphere of disinformation that enabled Israel to blame Hamas for their own bombing of a hospital in Gaza. Plainly, different people get hung up on different things. For my part I take it that *all* such accusations are completely preposterous, and betray a *total* misunderstanding of how the world actually works. As it happens, “Kamala Harris for President”, while it may have incorporated some attempts at humor, was my very earnest effort to work through what I take to be a real and gravely serious dilemma. I sincerely do not know that the Democratic establishment Harris represents --to which she boasted in her DNC speech that the US has the most “lethal” fighting force in the world-- offers the world a better chance for avoiding global cataclysmic conflict than does Trumpist nationalist isolationism. I am a Christian and (therefore) a pacifist and an anti-nationalist, and I literally *hate* both of the available paths, both liberal imperial hawkism, and nationalist isolationism. So I deployed a metafictional back-and-forth technique to work through the fears that this dilemma provokes in me. I assure you, I am at least as fearful as you are. You can't handle the manner in which I process this fear? Then go away!
In my view any suggestion that we must curb the autonomy of artistic creation in response to political crises, with some vague promise that when “things get better” we can start freely creating again, is inherently totalitarian. I resist such suggestions utterly, and in my resistance I can cite multiple historical cases in which things just kept getting worse politically even as the range of free artistic expression kept getting narrower.
I really prefer, when subscribers unsubscribe, that they just go ahead and do it without bothering me with their reasons. Our subscribers are not “shareholders”, and have no say in the running of this here endeavor. They are mécènes, and they sponsor us on the understanding that we have --yes-- total autonomy. I've always rolled my eyes when I've seen readers of the NYT or the Post, flustered by some op-ed they don't like, writing in the comments section: “That's it, I'm cancelling my subscription.” What an impotent gesture! I can't imagine *ever* doing that myself. I see it as on a par with that equally impotent gesture of young progressives who rewrite NYT headlines, posting the original version in a screenshot to social media, and saying: “Fixed it for you!” What a dumb thing to do. What a waste of energy!
But otherwise let me add that I've really enjoyed your readership and your comments, and I do regret that you had such a negative experience with that one piece, which I continue to consider one of my most inspired yet!
^^ as the kids say. Whelp I'll never un subscribe and i'm not telling you why. (Not to be mean! Just to live and die by the sword. Of course I'd love to tell you, should you ever need a testimonial from a nobody of unspecified demographic.)
I’m glad you’re going to cover this topic. I’ve seen that article, “The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read” referenced nearly everywhere. It seems that the article struck a chord with many (or maybe it’s the internet bubble I’m in).
Looking forward to seeing what your guest writers have to say.
Love Olivia's suggestion for War and Peace. Hey, the three-volume novel! Love all your work, JSR and friends, please don't be put off, express yourselves freely and beautifully.
If I have a beef about the state of reading, it's the overwhelmingly anglophilic literary taste reflected on Substack--a paradox in an era when globalization should lead us far beyond the edges of our native tongue.
Will this series cross over into the Symposion? Given that auditory mode, discussion of literacy could seem counterintuitive but also, maybe, apt: orality may have turbocharged with the explosion of podcasting (with hearing podcasts functioning in lieu of reading reports or books).
I hadn’t considered that… We’ll see!
Perhaps you'll recall, that evening at the American Library in Paris, someone else accusing us, as authors of In Search of the Third Bird --which you call “brilliant”-- of contributing to the atmosphere of disinformation that enabled Israel to blame Hamas for their own bombing of a hospital in Gaza. Plainly, different people get hung up on different things. For my part I take it that *all* such accusations are completely preposterous, and betray a *total* misunderstanding of how the world actually works. As it happens, “Kamala Harris for President”, while it may have incorporated some attempts at humor, was my very earnest effort to work through what I take to be a real and gravely serious dilemma. I sincerely do not know that the Democratic establishment Harris represents --to which she boasted in her DNC speech that the US has the most “lethal” fighting force in the world-- offers the world a better chance for avoiding global cataclysmic conflict than does Trumpist nationalist isolationism. I am a Christian and (therefore) a pacifist and an anti-nationalist, and I literally *hate* both of the available paths, both liberal imperial hawkism, and nationalist isolationism. So I deployed a metafictional back-and-forth technique to work through the fears that this dilemma provokes in me. I assure you, I am at least as fearful as you are. You can't handle the manner in which I process this fear? Then go away!
In my view any suggestion that we must curb the autonomy of artistic creation in response to political crises, with some vague promise that when “things get better” we can start freely creating again, is inherently totalitarian. I resist such suggestions utterly, and in my resistance I can cite multiple historical cases in which things just kept getting worse politically even as the range of free artistic expression kept getting narrower.
I really prefer, when subscribers unsubscribe, that they just go ahead and do it without bothering me with their reasons. Our subscribers are not “shareholders”, and have no say in the running of this here endeavor. They are mécènes, and they sponsor us on the understanding that we have --yes-- total autonomy. I've always rolled my eyes when I've seen readers of the NYT or the Post, flustered by some op-ed they don't like, writing in the comments section: “That's it, I'm cancelling my subscription.” What an impotent gesture! I can't imagine *ever* doing that myself. I see it as on a par with that equally impotent gesture of young progressives who rewrite NYT headlines, posting the original version in a screenshot to social media, and saying: “Fixed it for you!” What a dumb thing to do. What a waste of energy!
But otherwise let me add that I've really enjoyed your readership and your comments, and I do regret that you had such a negative experience with that one piece, which I continue to consider one of my most inspired yet!
well, I will re-read it then. maybe this time I will "get it"...
^^ as the kids say. Whelp I'll never un subscribe and i'm not telling you why. (Not to be mean! Just to live and die by the sword. Of course I'd love to tell you, should you ever need a testimonial from a nobody of unspecified demographic.)
Sorry for causing World War III 😂!
Pretty sure that article was actually three kids in a trench coat.