Metal Reviews

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/a ... ntPage=all

I wish it had talked more about the internet (reading on the internet vs reading a book, etc)... but interesting article nonetheless.

Yes, reading is for "fags" and "dirty liberals". This has been going on for quite some time. Being intelligent is looked down upon, you're supposed to care about what Britney Spears is doing, and not about some stuffy old book.

And why read a book when you can just watch the movie.

Her sister is pregnant!!!!11!!

Meh, I'll still be reading whenever I feel inclined to do so.

Reading is for "dirty liberals"? Where the hell did you get that?

Since Bush took over and questioning authority and being generally intelligent went out of style. And he got it wrong. You aren't supposed to care about Britney Spears anymore; it's all about her knocked up 17 yr old sister.

" In the US 2000 Presidential Election, the media (particularly late night comics) portrayed Candidate Al Gore as a boring "brainiac" who spoke in a monotonous voice and jabbered on about numbers and figures that no one could understand. His supposed "claim to have invented the Internet" was widely ridiculed. It was the classic stereotype of a pompous, out-of-touch intellectual, and this perception arguably hurt Gore in the election. In the years since, debate between the left and right in America has often centered on the relation of the intellectual class to the public as a whole.

Conservative commentators such as Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, and Rush Limbaugh commonly argue that conservative politicians, particularly Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, have been attacked by media as being "incompetent" - this can be understood as an accusation of intellectual snobbery by the media. O'Reilly in particular is well known for having a hostile attitude towards what he calls the "Ivy League Elite." The word "intellectual" itself has been used as an insult by many on the right.

Both O'Reilly and Limbaugh, as well as other conservative hosts such as Tucker Carlson and Joe Scarborough are frequently accused of having anti-intellectual atmospheres on their shows, evidenced by their frequent interruption of guests who try to put forward complex arguments. Scarborough once commented that, "If my guest is allowed to speak uninterrupted for more than 15 seconds, then I'm not doing my job.""

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-intellectualism

I'd hope it's just a silly stereotype that conservative = pro-stupid >.<

I think some ambiguity exists between mode of presentation of information and quality of information. What you're dealing with is the old notion that reading is the passtime of better-educated people. Whilst this was true in the past, I think that reading now is the passtime of people who prefer the written word as information media due to spread of literacy, ease of publishing and greater accessibility of books. In other words, the media information is delivered by is no longer an accurate indicator of how good that information is.

I don't think reading is all that special. It just happens to be an older mode of communication which got some prestige because it used to be relegated to the educated classes. There are rubbish books out there, just like there is rubbish television material. Reading indiscriminately does nothing to educate a person. Perhaps it may flex their reading muscles, but that's it.

I've read extensively since I was a child. It is my primary form of entertainment and education. However, I've recently discovered the joy of lectures in mp3 format. Whilst I absorb information from reading quite well, I remember things a lot better when I hear them. I go to university lectures because I need a human voice to recite things to me. Sometimes I listen to lectures rather than read because they just happen to be the more convenient information medium. Television and voice recording require that a person do less mental work in some respects (ie they convey video/audio information), but they also require different mental processes. It might be just that some people are naturally better suited to getting information through video/audio rather than recognizing symbols and imagining things.

I think that the fun of written fiction lies in imagining settings, but that is the only advantage of the written word. In the end, you got your information. Who cares how you got it? I'll take a quality film over a crappy novel any day.

While listening to mp3's of lectures is pretty comparable to reading. I find that there is a huge difference between reading and audio/video other than just being a different medium. When you read you are focusing on it and it is easy to slowly digest it at your own pace. To take the example in the article, if your reading about a mafia character you can think about an event and relate to your life..etc. in the sopranos, think about it for a second and its the next scene. I think that you have to make a real comitment to reading makes you learn more from it. Even if it is fiction.

PLus i find there to be more diverse points of view and lines of thoughts to read than what you find in other mediums.

Yes, but it is possible to render those differing points of view in any other medium. Besides that, some people simply don't absorb the things they read so they can't digest anything from reading in the first place, whilst the things they get from other media they can concentrate on. I think it's a matter of personal preference and I am glad that new media are available.

I think reading is not going downhill because people are getting complacent and stupid. Average IQ scores have gone up in the past couple of decades. I just think reading is becoming obsolete as people are no longer forced into getting their information from one kind of media.

The article talks about why reading is pretty different from audio/visual as far as absorbing information goes (and that just simply reading anything is beneficial because it develops your ability to think abstractly and your attention span and like such as), though I agree personal preference does come into play.

However, I think cable TV is a burden on humanity's soul and should be eliminated. It's not for learning or entertaining; it's for turning your brain off so they can pummel your subconscious with advertising.

there still is no alternative for the same level of involvement for the consumer, which is important for abstract thought.

I thinkreadings going down because there is such a short attention span now because of the bombardment of information that people are getting more ADD.

this reminds me of a comercial for a news station that said "we have the most news stories per hour "

I too prefer other medias to books due to a very short attention span and laziness- depending on how boring the material is. I believe that books have a great advantage over documentries and movies. You can stuff much more infomation into a book, you can elaborate much more, and you can create a fantasy world so big it can't fit the screen in the cinema - make the universe inside the book much richer so to speak, or create images even the best computers can't produce + it trains the ability to think abstract. Documentries and movies will always be a discount version of reality or book, unless the book sucked and the documentry is about Britney Spears underwear. But when it comes to education in general books are better than all other medias - especially after primary school - and yes i do know of Dunn and Dunn learning styles, but if you are listening to a mp3 version of the book, i still consider it to be a book - rather than a documentry, movie or internet which are heavily simplified. Depends on how you look at it, of course.

Being intelligent has been "out of style" for years. Probably since the 60's. Watch some old teen comedies from the 80's. Almost anybody who might be considered "intelligent" is shown as nerdy/geeky. And then the grunge and gangsta rap ages made intelligence seem even less desirable to the mainstream.

Exactly. Reading is more in-depth. It gives you more freedom of personal interpretation and makes you do more thinking than listening to an audio book or watching a movie. This is why book versions of famous stories are usually better than movie versions.