Flourishing

Back in April I wrote a post entitled, “Why Read?” I had been listening to Thomas Friedman making the argument that ours in a “search culture.” We don’t read so much as search out information. This, he noted, is a result of the development of new communication media like the internet which is infinitely searchable.

Inherent in Friedman’s observation is a profound alteration. We are not only changing what we read, we are changinghow we read. Or rather, we are being changed. That is the thesis of Nicholas Carr’s article, “Is Google Making us Stupid Stoopid?”

Writes Carr,

“My mind isn’t going - so far as I can tell - but it’s changing….Immersing myself in a book or lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s rarely the case anymore. My concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.”

Is the internet changing the way we read? It seems that it is. It is also changing the amount we read. Americans are reading more in 2008 than they read in the 1970s and 1980s. This is largely due to the growing use of email, text messages, and the internet. These are reading-based means of communication as opposed to visual means of communication, like television, which defined pop culture of the 1970s and 1980s. While we may conclude that Americans are reading more in 2008 than ever before, we cannot conclude that we are reading better.

Let’s assume that the way we read is changing. Since my own experience seems eerily similar to Carr’s, I’m a believer. A couple of days after the birth of our son on April 29, my Apple iBook G4 died and I entered a technological detox program. I was basically without a laptop for about a month (two weeks voluntarily, two weeks involuntarily). During that time I realized how much time I wasted each day simply “following links,” reading blogs, and sending emails. I also noticed how few books I had read over the last semester and how easily I was distracted when I tried to read. I had already decided that technology was the culprit and (before this) had blogged about it elsewhere. The inevitable next question is: so what?

As compelling an answer to this question as I have read comes from Tufts developmental psychologist Maryanne Wolf author of Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain.

We are not only whatwe read, we are how we read,” notes Wolf. The internet promotes a type of reading that places a premium on “efficiency” and “immediacy.” We become, “mere decoders of information.” Carr ponders whether in so doing we are losing our ability to do the deep and sustained reading that emerged with the invention of the printing press.

As evidence of the influence that technology exercises over reading and composition, Carr offers the German philosophy Friedrich Nietzsche. At some point in 1882 Nietzsche purchased and began to use a typewriter. His eyesight was failing and focusing on a page induced headaches that essentially made it impossible to write.

In correspondence between Nietzsche and a friend (a composer), his correspondent notes that Nietzsche’s writing had changed to become more terse. In reply the philosopher concedes, “You are right, our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts.” The shift from longhand to typewriter altered the way in which Nietzsche wrote. We may well ponder how email and the internet are affecting our communication.

The fundamental question is whether reading is information gathering, contemplation, or a little bit of both at varying times.

The technician (like Google’s Sergey Brin and Larry Page) see reading as accessing little stacks of information. Reading can be reduced to an algorithm. As a result, Google seeks industrial efficiency in taking people to the data they need (the right quote, the perfect figure, the exact illustration) by liberating it from the bulky construct called a book of which it typically is a part.

Artists (like playwright Richard Foreman) see reading as a participation in a grand tradition, a participation in the large tradition of which we are part. Lose this and we risk being flattened into “pancake people,” more robot than homo sapiens.

Question: The Christian faith is rooted in the story of God’s redemptive work among His people contained in the Bible. How might this trend adversely affect the reading of Scripture among the community of faith? Will the Church be one of the custodians of the “old reading” in the new wired age?

The professional economist is not really trained to answer, or even ask himself questions about absolute values. The economist is inside the squirrel cage and turning with it. Any question about absolute values belongs to the sphere, not of economics, but of religion.

-Dorothy L. Sayers, “Why Work?” in Creed or Chaos?

In her essay quoted above, Dorothy L. Sayers expressed regret over the undue influence held by economists in her day. There is, she claimed, something inherently unChristian about allowing economic criteria to be the sole (or absolute) means for deciding moral questions. Surely economists can tell us whether or not a given policy will have the desired effect, but they cannot tell us whether or not a given policy is morally right or wrong. Economics is descriptive and not normative. It tells us what is rather than what ought to be.

In their descriptive function, however, economists can dish out some interesting data. Consider an example published by Radha Iyegar and Jonathan Monten of Harvard University. The paper is entitled, “Is There an ‘Emboldenment’ Effect? Evidence from the Insurgency in Iraq.” Read the study here. It deals with the hot-button issue of terrorism. Specifically, whether or not talk of withdrawing from Iraq emboldens the enemy.

If you’re like me, you’ve listened to the rhetoric of both the White House and its critics and found both to be rather lacking. There have been many assertions since March 20, 2003. Many defended the war and some, even early on, criticized it. The unfortunate nature of political discourse in our country (i.e., through the medium of sound bytes) means that many assertions were effectively made in a vacuum. No data-specific rationale was given. Data, it seems, has been relegated to CSPAN.

However, two Harvard researchers have shown that the Iraqi insurgency acts in a rational manner in the timing and intensity of its offensive action on the battlefield. Specifically, they found incidents of insurgent violence increase by 7-10 per cent in periods following “intensified criticism of the Iraq War by the American public and in the U.S. media.” The effect diminished relatively quickly with violence returning to pre-spike levels within a period of one month.

The researchers concluded that the actions of the insurgents were a “systematic response” to a perceived opportunity to tip the weight of public opinion in the U.S. toward immediate withdrawal.

The Bush administration, and other supporters of the war, have long maintained that criticism of the war “emboldens” terrorist. The data suggest that they may well have a point. It seems then that the next five months may well be very difficult for U.S. and coalition troops in Iraq as we anticipate November’s presidential election which is, among other things, a referendum on the Iraq War.

All things considered, it is still both right and prudent to engage in a spirited discussion of both the morality and the practicality of the Iraq War. After all, reports of weakness in one’s enemy always serve to embolden.

Question: What role should economic realities play in Christian political thought?