Against Reading

Notes on the ineffectiveness of books

I have begun to notice that those of us who read have very little to say. Conversing recently with a friend who had watched just a handful of videos on Al-Andalus, I found that he could give a far better narrative account of Muslim Spain, its rise to power, the reasons for its dissolution, its political systems, and its relation to the Christian world than I.

I, who had spent a week toiling with a chapter on the innovations within irrigation in Muslim Spain, and could hardly recall a paragraph’s worth of information from it. My father, too, who has not touched a book since he was obliged to as a child, but who frequently watches documentaries on the Second World War, is able to recall a series of dates, names and death tolls that would embarrass a third year History graduate, whose recourse to bookmarks, highlights and citations only stifle his ability to be fluent in his subject.

Reading is a slow, deliberating task, and one which in truth leaves little to no impression on the mind. You will notice that those who get their information from documentaries, internet videos and other multimedia platforms are much more able to speak at length on a topic of interest if prompted than those who are supposedly “well-read” on the subject. The medium of the documentary is colourful, condensed and effective; one’s brain is made pliable and soft by the stimulus, and is more receptive to absorbing information.

The brain of the reader is solid and impassable. Facts are not absorbed by it, but rather etched excruciatingly upon its surface. It has taken me twenty-six years of reading to realise that I have learned absolutely nothing about positively everything. That is to say that I can talk for about thirty seconds on any given subject that might be thrown my way, but no longer. Even the topics for which I have convinced myself that I have a greater interest in can elicit no more than a five minute discourse from me, which itself would be of less interest or use than a synopsis plucked from an encyclopedia entry. 

Readers occupy the very lowest rung of the knowledge hierarchy, being those who put in the most effort for the lowest returns. I would encourage the reader to compare the length and thickness of any particular book which he has read of late with the amount of information which he himself can relate on the subject. I wager that he will come up very short. The documentary watcher, however, invests a minimum of time in his subject while achieving a comprehensive knowledge of it.

That is not to say that books do not serve their purpose: They are the boggy swamp of knowledge, to be trawled through by the serfs of the knowledge economy, the information of which they then filter, taking the most important facts and stringing them into a neat narrative for their superiors. The final, packaged product — a short internet video, documentary or info-graphic, as the case may be — is to be consumed by those further up the pyramid, the aristocrats in the knowledge hierarchy.

This is nothing new. Medieval kings did not waste their time reading, but conferred the task upon their inferiors, who would labour over old tomes, plucking policy out of paper. No doubt these court scholars resented their lowly position, and carried with them a bitter sense of intellectual superiority which helped them better tolerate their impotency. The same is true today, with academics sighing exasperatedly as those who have only read summaries make decisions on policy and the governance of the world — As if, were they in charge, the hundred decisions and revisions, vacillations and doubts which their studiousness would provoke, would not bring the world to a grinding halt!

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