I once saw a stand-up comedian on Comedy Central (I happened to be taking a break from reading Teen Vogue, listening to Britney, and playing Age of Empires II) who talked about arguing with his girlfriend. He relayed how, after an argument had been going on for a while, she would start just throwing any random insult and indignity at him to try to win, completely ignoring the topic being discussed. While arguing about why he never hadn't done the dishes in a week, for example, she would suddenly start attacking his sexual potency. Bauerlein kind of strikes me as a similar sort of cat. What, you don't agree with me that college freshman are less academically equipped now than they ever have been? Fine! I'll just start arguing about Harry Potter! Oh, you don't know who the King of Sweden was in 1658? Well, graphic novels aren't really books, anyway.
In the second chapter of his book The Dumbest Generation, Mark Bauerlein argues mercilessly his point that reading isn't cool anymore, so no one in the current generation of teens and young adults does it anymore. Several problems arise from this. Where, precisely, do we get the impression that reading isn't as cool as it used to be, or that people who enjoy reading, for pleasure or for an assignment, are invariably labelled as uncool? Bauerlein seems to make all of his vast generalizations about this "trend" from random encounters with lone individuals, such as those who shout out that books aren't important anymore during a lecture he's giving. When you think about it, though, be honest: who among us wouldn't be highly tempted to heckle this guy if he were to stand in front of a large group of us and proceed to tell us how hopelessly stupid and apathetic we've all become? If it'd produce a laugh or two among our peers, why not? And, forgive me for not citing statistical data from the 1950s to back up this assumption, but it seems to me that obnoxious heckling of a speaker isn't something that our generation of college students invented. Nay, it seems pretty archetypal to me.
For me, pages 56 and 57 are where Bauerlein's argument just got absurd. In order to make the point that today's young people don't care about reading and books in the same way that past generations did, he cites four highly exceptional and unique individuals from the past 200 years and describes their love for the written word. I don't really think that there is as big of a problem or difference as he likes to say there is. Even if I did, though, lining up the literary and intellectual capacities and endeavours of today's average high school student alongside those of W. E. B. Du Bois, Frederick Douglass, John Stuart Mill, and Walt Whitman is just ridiculous. Each one of them lived and died at least over a century ago, and we remember these four for their being above and beyond exceptional. What about the average grammar school or university student from 1806? Are not all of the modern-day statistics that Bauerlein cites representations of the average high school student or the average college freshman? Surely if you lined up modern society's brilliant minds with those of the past, you'd find some similar traits. And if Du Bois, Douglass, Mill, and Whitman had had the ability, would they not have propped their feet up on the coffee table and watched the latest Tom Hanks film or the season premiere of South Park? Would they not have checked out the Wikipedia page on Doctor Octopus or searched YouTube for a video of a cat singing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star? We do these activities now because we're able and it's enjoyable. Why do you think the great minds of the past read Aristotle? I'm not saying that no one nowadays does that either. We just do other things in addition.
So Mr. Bauerlein, why is your book written on stark white paper and printed in manufactured black ink, with every individual letter appearing exactly the same every time it comes up in a sentence? I only ask because it seems a shame that no one scrawls out writings onto scrolls of parchment by hand anymore. I bet I can find statistics showing a sharp decline in the number of cross-country runners who convey messages that they commit to memory, too. I'd just Google it.
Comments (4)
Good point about the fallacy of comparing geniuses of yesteryear to average students of today.
Posted by Mark Bauerlein | April 5, 2009 9:11 AM
Posted on April 5, 2009 09:11
Thank you, Professor Bauerlein. How nifty that you found, read, and commented on my class blog! I hope you don't walk away with the impression that I want to attack every point you make in your book. Indeed, I've only read the first two chapters so far. Counterarguments, however, spark better class discussion than reciting all of your points with which I agree.
I will say this, though. I am friends with a fair number of people who spend all of their time playing video games or surfing the Internet for funny pictures of cats. I'm also friends with a similar number of people who are always in the library or up in a tree reading Nietzsche, Hobbes, O'Neill and the like. Hence why the average student falls somewhere in the middle. On a side note, I can think of several examples of the 'Net-surfing gamers being both more socially adept and more motivated (and therefore more academically successful) than their philosophy-devouring peers.
If you want to make a comparison of the intellectual giants of centuries past with modern day youth, I suggest you consider figures such as Colin Meloy, Suzan-Lori Parks, and Jack White. And these are only names of people who have recently been recognized as exceptional, and the first three that happened to come to my mind on Sunday morning when I just got out of the shower. Going back even half a century brings up figures such as Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Gwendolyn Brooks, Stanley Kubrick, Alan Moore, and others who loved and lived the written word in one form or another.
Looks like I've rambled enough, so I'll be ramblin' on.
Posted by Dan | April 5, 2009 11:54 AM
Posted on April 5, 2009 11:54
Dan,
Thanks for making me laugh! I agree with a lot of your points, but some of the chapter hits home as well. I know I don't read as much as I should, and I feel like while we can argue the value of the internet and digital age, is our time really spent wisely when looking at LOLCats and YouTube for hours?
While some of the statistics presented make me wonder (such as on page 61)... the number of titles published increased 14% but the number sold decreased by nearly 44 million. What percent is that? Reminds me of grocery stores when they put one product in $x.xx per ounce and another in $x.xx per pound just to mess with you and make it hard to compare. If the statistic is impressive, why not include all of the information?
Although you didn't mention it in your blog, I would like to hear your opinion about Bauderlein's argument on the Harry Potter series. Reading a book solely so you can feel included? Surely a lot of people feel connected through living vicariously through Mr. Potter, but if they want to be included in the know-how, they could just watch one of the movies, which is a shortcut many people took. One of my fondest memories from a family trip to Scotland was encountering a large family vacationing from England who met during tea time to hear the next chapter in Harry Potter which the mother read to her children aloud in her amazing English accent. Harry Potter creates bonds between people, yes, but I argue that it is the literature that keeps people reading and not the status that goes along with it.
That being said, if I was planning on writing a book which argued a point, I feel as though I have to take one side or the other. Presenting statistics that constantly contradict each other and being wishy-washy the entire time would lead to a very tedious, pointless read. The chapter brings up many good points as well as a few which seem a little more of a stretch.
Also, I think it is extremely cool that Mark Bauderlein replied to your blog entry. It's strange and exciting to think that people actually read our blogs!
PS: Sorry this is so long...I got a little overzealous in my reply.
Posted by Leslie | April 6, 2009 12:31 PM
Posted on April 6, 2009 12:31
Leslie,
I had every intention of talking about my impression of the Harry Potter issue in my blog. Then I wrote my blog, and realized that it was already kind of long and it started going in another direction anyway. I'm totally willing to bring it up in class, though.
Posted by Dan | April 7, 2009 9:46 AM
Posted on April 7, 2009 09:46