10mo ago

you’ve been traumatized into hating reading (and it makes you easier to oppress).

ismatu.substack.com you’ve been traumatized into hating reading (and it makes you easier to oppress).

i was not going to publish this essay because i don’t like to yell but here the fuck i am.

The ruling class wants you to be literate enough to understand their written orders. And nothing more. True literacy is punk. True literacy is revolutionary.

If you look at this article and think "this is too long to read" you're part of the target audience. Make the time.

47 comments

I love reading, but the moment an author tries to guilt me into reading their particular viewpoint as though I'm just a slave of the system if I don't, I check out. I have better things to do, and this person doesn't have any right to my time.

In one breath the author tells us that people who don't want to read the article are the target demographic.
And then in the next 8000 breaths they proceed to use some of the most dense, obtuse, wandering, inappropriately poetic language for an essay I've seen outside of academia
I agree with nearly everything the author has to say and yet I think the essay is a complete and utter failure at even approaching the goals it claims to have.
Nobody who needs to read this will. Not because it's too long (though some will have that reason) but because anyone with moderate to poor literacy - the people explicitly called out as the target of the piece - won't be able to grok half the sentences, let alone an entire paragraph, without re-reading it 2, 3, maybe 4 times.
Unfortunate, because the message, and the information contained within the essay, is incredibly important for those people
- Most of it sounded like a love poem to themselves. I was terribly unimpressed.
- Understanding their target audience but not catering to that target audience means this is an article preaching to the choir. Most people literate enough to skim through and make sense of this are already aware of how uncommon deep literacy is.

Reading books is one thing, but sorting through articles online is another. There's so much crap out there put out by so many bad faith actors that it's become a necessary everyday skill to be able to skim through something to decide if it's even worth your time (which itself is a highly literary skill). Even when you've found a good paper or article, does it relate enough to the topic you're looking for? There's a reason even academic papers come with abstracts and executive summaries.
- not to mention crappy AI articles being an issue nowadays
- Fwiw this article is well worth reading, in my opinion. I feel like it presents a valuable perspective and insight. I just shared it on a couple discord servers, after reading it myself.

Nice wordsmithing, quite self indulgent while presenting to be benevolent. I do agree with a lot of points but conclusions are a miss. I would say that the biggest issue here is that the world is accelerating more and more. Information barrage is intense and squeezing books for entertainment is a non-trivial task. While author talks about US, similar trends are present globally without the force of spooky "imperialistic hand".
- To be fair... Where in the world isn't there an imperialistic hand?
  
  Maybe... Can I just have it for tonight?

Lolz how about "no".

Now, if you bothered to continue to read past that, note that I am a STRONG advocate for reading. Not only that, but I read a lot myself. In fact, whenever I encounter something BEAUTIFULLY written, I literally cannot put it down (sometimes I just force myself, especially to eat, then continue) - a recent example is https://medium.com/@max.p.schlienger/the-cargo-cult-of-the-ennui-engine-890c541cebcb, which I read just at the time of the Reddit protests and it really hit the spot. Nor was it mere intellectual masturbatory exposition either - it convinced me to drop Reddit, and if I ever did join something else (at the time, Kbin, before I gave up on it and switched to Lemmy), to make sure that I did not allow it to become what Reddit had started to be for me: an addiction. Yes, my community needed a moderator if it was going to survive - but why should that be me, in perpetuity? (especially with the mod tools going to shit)
"Flatland" was another that was just... chef's kiss, I literally dreamed about it, and it ignited in me a renewal of my desire for reading after grad school had me too read-out. It has a sequel too btw, Sphereland. If Flatland offends people, look it up - it was ancient satire (in all likelihood).
So I READ, muddafucker, I DO. But when someone tells me that I HAVE to, I nope out, instantly. Ironically, I know that I am the one being true punk here, whatever words people may want to throw at me.
How about drawing people in by making a product that encourages people to want to read this shit?
- They definitely do feel like they've spent too long in their self-described "Academic Zoo."
  Having not been in academia for years now, I absolutely agree with you on this- nothing drives reading comprehension and general attention span quite like a real incentive.
  In a way, I kinda think you're both right, but the article's approach is all wrong. They want to treat the symptom, not the disease.
  The "Ruling class" is incentivized to inspire the kind of apathy that just happens to inspire poor literacy, and instead of focusing on haranguing people about reading, we just need to give them reasons to give a shit about, you know, anything.
  A zest for life in general.
  People who feel passion will write and read- you see it simply by the fact that fanfiction went crazy the moment the internet got a decent volume of users.
  
  Fwiw, I think you are also right too:-). I understand somewhat what the OP is trying to say here: you need to get over yourself, and put in some WORK to get you through the cognitive dissonance that reading is likely to cause. However, try saying that in ANY other context:
  a white person to a black person: "uh, have you tried just getting over it? slavery was hundreds of years ago now, and it's not like I ever owned any slaves" (note that there is just too much wrong here to even begin to unpack in a short space, but here I am focusing on how insensitive it is: even though black people would LOVE to simply "get over it", especially for it to STOP HAPPENING, as in right this very moment, that is a PROCESS and they cannot simply snap their fingers and wish away an entire history built upon it, e.g. how police - and employers - will treat someone different based on color of skin)
  an old man (or woman) to a young girl: "you know you would look prettier if you smiled more, right?" (okay... first, this is objectively true, but once again, it's nowhere near the point - if she is frowning or whatever, simply telling her to plaster over her emotional state and "be pretty", for the sake of the external viewer and once again, regardless of how she feels about the whole thing - is again extremely insensitive?)
  a man to a woman: "sexism is a thing over the past, maybe if you want a higher salary you should just work harder?" (as is the theme here, this is like 90% untrue, even if it contains a germ of truth - some women can rise up, despite the shackles, and indeed you'll never know if you do not try and all that but... dayum, how insensitive to phrase it like this?)
  In all of these, the packaging seems equally as important as the message itself, if not more so. Now, my own reply did take an unnecessarily aggressive stance, though it was intentionally modeled after the one I read out from OP's wording, in an attempt to highlight it better (since some people can see some things more clearly when they are repeated back to them, perhaps they are too close to fully see the implications of their own stance?). And I dunno, sometimes that works... but it does seem far more likely that a gentler approach might result in a better chance of reception?
  For instance, each of my above instances could have been rephrased:
  I hope that one day you find the peace to move beyond the hurts of the past. I know that you can't right now b/c it's still happening, but I do have hope that one day we can get there, together.
  I am sorry that you are having a bad day - is there anything I can do to help? If not, I at least hope that it will get better for you.
  You cannot control things beyond yourself, but if you want to make the attempt, I support you - go get it girl! :-P
  Rather than shame the already-victims, putting the onus on the receiver to do ALL the work, wouldn't a true leader (or at least encourager) inspire their audience to do the desired task, as in empower them to do what they should want already to do? (dayum, that sounded really profound, - I better write that down!:-P)

If you look at this article and think “this is too long to read” you’re part of the target audience. Make the time.
It outright told me this is going to take 40-ish minutes. The problem isn't that I "hate to read", the problem is that sitting in one place doing one thing for 40 minutes makes my skin crawl (because I have productivity brain poisoning). I've switched to audiobooks because I can get through them while also doing other tasks (like when I'm zoning out on the welding press at work) and I'm chewing through about one book a week these days. I'm reading theory! I'm reading fiction again! I'm just not literally reading them, because I'm not going to make the time.
EDIT Okay this doesn't seem to actually be critiquing podcasts and audiobooks as much as I expected, but is more focused on TikTok and other video content. Easy to digest, requires zero concentration, and doesn't stick in your brain the way long-form content does. Not as disagreeable as when I started. Although her point "Can you tell me the thesis and supporting arguements of videos you watched from two calendar years ago?" doesn't really land for me - I can barely remember my own life from two years ago. I need notes for that, and this argument seems more in favor of active reading than just reading in general.
- Although her point “Can you tell me the thesis and supporting arguements of videos you watched from two calendar years ago?” doesn’t really land for me - I can barely remember my own life from two years ago.
  I have my master's in a field I'm very passionate about, and I can barely remember my thesis when people ask me about it, even though I spent two years developing it :P
  I do like the author's points very much, and I especially appreciate her unique perspective, because a lot of times I read things like this from US or UK authors, as opposed to someone who's had the experiences she has. But I also agree that maybe it's a bit unfair to consumers of audiobooks and alternative forms of reading, and it probably misses its target audience.
  I showed my husband as soon as I finished reading because I felt like he could relate to a lot of what she said since he has ADHD, and as soon as he saw the length of the article, he said, "You're kidding,right?"
  Also, I listen to audiobooks a lot while I'm out walking or longboarding, and I really don't notice a difference between that and conventional reading. I feel like I absorb the information just as well, and sometimes even more because I'm keeping my hands and feet busy and am therefore less distracted than when I try to sit still and read.
  
  and sometimes even more because I’m keeping my hands and feet busy and am therefore less distracted
  This is so true! I can engage with works so deeply when I don't have to concentrate on concentrating, because I'm so occupied that I don't have more room to even be distracted in the first place. The only downside is I need to figure out a way to take notes while listening to audiobooks. Maybe some kind of wrist voice recorder? idk

what's the tl;dr?
- Basically corporations want a level of literacy sufficient to serve the company but insufficient to develop independent thought, which could jeopardize corporate profits.
  That's pretty much it, despite claiming how important it is to read the article, it's extremely long winded, tangential, bloated and hard to read. So long winded, it's effectively concluded in a single sentence
- Tl;Dr read
- Reading is good.
- They will never give you the education needed to overthrow them.

the website makes my phone lag
I'm not going to wait for 10 seconds before it scrolls way past where I was reading
Also does this article account for people with (mental, physical or learning) disabilities who cannot read or have more difficulty doing so? You can tell me to read all you want but if the text isnt accessible I simply cant read long texts, I have dyslexia, ADHD (focus issues) and my eyes physically shake leading to me skipping over entire paragraphs unless there's enough white space between the lines
That is not even to mention people with intelectual disabities or the language barriers that might cause this to not be readable
Yes I have trauma regarding reading but maybe consider there's more to it than that OP
All that is to say, things arent as simple as "you are the audience, read it"
maybe the article is better but idk cause its inaccessible for me for various reasons including "my phone is not powerful enough to read this article". I see some form of irony there, considering class was mentioned
- I have dyslexia, ADHD (focus issues) and my eyes physically shake leading to me skipping over entire paragraphs unless there’s enough white space between the lines
  I read A LOT. I have a couple of degrees.
  Ignore snobbery. Listening to an audiobook is just as valid a way of enjoying a book as reading it. I suggest starting with something you think you might actually enjoy, maybe a genuine classic, not this overly long blogpost.
  Listen to a chapter before you go to sleep. If people are snobs about audiobooks, don't mention you listened to it, just say you read it.
  I recommend looking on the BBC sounds app/website: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/
  It's free.
  
  I've tried audiobooks but it seems that - as silly as it sounds - I need closed captions with those
  a combination of listening and reading with speeds synced up for me (like CC on video content) would work best, and most options for that are subscription based, or require expensive tech last I checked
  I'll check the BBC sounds out tomorrow though, I appreciate the help
  
  frfr audiobooks are great! I'm halfway through Green Mars because I listen to audiobooks at work now, after spending literal years procrastinating on reading the Mars trilogy because I couldn't make the time to sit down and for real read a book.
- Do you use Firefox? Reader mode should solve the problem with lag.
  The author is actually mindful of everything you just mentioned and has experienced these things herself.
- FTA:
  I did not come to reading consistently because the act in itself was easy. I have multiple learning divergences— dyslexia, autism, ADHD. I still (still!) struggle to focus my mind on the page, and at this point I read for a living. I came to reading because not reading was worse.
  
  Thanks for the quote, does the author provide any solution to that or acknowledge that some people simply cannot because if not it feels like a "I can do it with my disabilities so you can too!"

also I think Boondocks has done a hell of a job satirizing this and many other issues while getting a point across very clearly author is definetely a Huey
https://youtu.be/bFtcLJVN8yg

This is dumb. Of course long form media is more nuanced and informative than short form. That's independent of the form of actual media however. If you think you're going to be more informed by reading my comment than you would be if I made a 20 minute video reply referencing underlying themes, you're delusional.
Tiktok isn't a replacement for essays, but it's not less informative than Twitter.

I feel like there's an assumption that Americans don't read when in fact they read a lot.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/388541/americans-reading-fewer-books-past.aspx
- And to add, book reading is not the only kind of reading.

This was great, thank you for sharing!

From my maths degree, I can tell you that the intensity or importancy of something does at no point correlate with the length of the article.
Quite the opposite, in fact: If you truly have something to say, you can get it straight and to the point.

...The floating ballerina...
In my twenties my family went to see a showing of The Nutcracker Suite and were seated way up in the high balconies. Every time a sugar-plum fairy daintily sprang up, she came down with a thunderous, audible thump which baked into my mind that physical mechanics works, even when we strive to pretend it can be overcome.

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