In Defense of Books

As any student procrastinating from homework would attest, reading on Facebook is somehow easier and more entertaining than a biology textbook; it is simple to read lines and lines of status updates and relationship changes. This trivial information is easy to comprehend and quickly loses meaning. While Facebook is a far cry from a novel (though, they both have a similar amount of drama), it is an apt illustration for the ease (and lack of permanency) that reading on a screen has versus the more laborious reading of the actual printed word. In "The Future of Reading", Jonah Lehrer's article for Wired web-magazine, he argues that, despite the immutable march towards digitalization of books, there is a distinct loss of effort on the part of the reader.

Lehrer's article is written for a tech-savvy audience, and assumes that the audience is fairly familiar with scientific processes. He writes for a diverse audience that may be as familiar with reading lab reports as web-zines. Therefore, he adopts a distinctly scientific bent in his writing style, making use of specific arrangement while making use of the stases for his own purpose. By doing this, his argument can be read in a more scientific way, and thus gains credibility with his audience.

By saying that Lehrer makes use of the stases does not mean that he adopts a rigid style dictated by each of the stases: fact, definition, cause, value, and policy. He manipulates the ordering to suit his purpose more effectively, beginning with the stasis of fact: "the future of books is digital"; ascends up the stases process to value: digital books are easy; and finally moves onto causal and policy suggestions.

He begins with providing an analogous situation: books are like the FM radio, quaint and cute, but not particularly practical or any more widely used. This gives legitimacy to his earlier statement of fact; like the radio, books are being replaced rapidly by a newer better technology- technology that Lehrer objectively refers to as nothing short of easy and brilliant.

As Lehrer moves onto a statement of value, however, we get a clearer picture of his feelings of books on screen- perhaps it is too easy. He justifies this statement of value with a causal claim of why it is quite so much simpler to read a sentence on screen versus on paper. It is objectively easier to read on typed words on screen than it is to read smudged handwriting, due to the neurological pathways of our brain. The ventral neural highway is responsible for the easy, automatic reading of a written word. A secondary way to read, though, is one that is slower, but more meaningful. This is when the reading pathway used is the dorsal stream, which forces conscious attention to what is being read. This is much less automatic and slower.

Lehrer uses this causal claim to move to his final stases: a policy suggestion. While never suggesting that a mass Kindle-burning, he offers a suggestion to re-engage the dorsal pathways of the brain: make texts more difficult to read. He says of e-readers, "I'd love for them to include a feature that allows us to undo their ease, to make the act of reading just a little bit more difficult [...] Our eyes need to struggle. [...] Only then will we process the text a little bit less unconsiously, with less reliance on the ventral pathway. We won't just scan the words- we will contemplate their meaning." He offers a concrete policy suggestion that is supported by his earlier claims of cause and value.

Lehrer's article gains legitimacy and value by his use of the stases. Instead of merely establishing his a policy suggestion, he works up to it, causing the reader to see the value of his suggestion. He uses the stases to give his claim a factual base, add value to his words and finally to offer a solution. Though, one doubts that Kindle will ever offer the option of smudged ink or faded text- and certainly will never offer complimentary musty book smell- Lehrer makes a valid, well supported argument for the printed word. Even further, his article shows the value of struggling with passages of text over the ease of a 140 character Twitter update, for sometimes it is the difficulty that makes a text meaningful.

At the Edge of a Precipice

If the Oxford English Dictionary is to be believed, a community is simply “a body of people or things viewed collectively.” However, in Studs Terkel’s article, “Community in Action”, recorded for NPR’s “This I Believe” series, this definition is challenged and extended dramatically. At the very core of Terkel’s belief is the rejection of community is as a passive body (as the OED definition would imply), and instead the emphatic assertion that community is something alive and active. This article reads not as a mere statement of his tenet, but rather as Terkel’s call for revolution in its most classical sense- the return to an older (and wiser) foundations of an active community, instead of a rejection of the word.

This argument is made manifest, first and foremost by the context of this article. Terkel first invokes the audience's trust, establishing ethos with the readers (or listeners, as this case might be), by affirming that this manifesto is a belief personal to him. He uses pathos to draw establish a connection, with a vignette that underlies his fundamental beliefs. Terkel himself is an expert, of sorts, on beliefs- he recorded countless stories in his quest to document the oral history of the 20th century. Terkel's belief carries the weight of trust- a country that has trusted itself to tell their stories to this man, now ready to receive his response in kind.

His story is one from the Great Depression, involving an all too familiar scene- a family left homeless- and Terkel's witness to the community, each making use of his own personal skills, replacing the family back into their flat. This story is one of hope, but even more so, it is an invocation to the communities of 2005 to return to this action.

Terkel tells his story to an audience that is similarly world weary as those families of the Great Depression, for 2005 was the beginning of what is now (somewhat ironically) called the Great Recession. In 2005, the country was beginning to see the full extent of the difficulties that the modern financial crisis would bring- home foreclosures, job losses, and other such horrors. A modern community stands on the same ledge as the community that hedges Terkel's beliefs, and is faced with the same questions: To separate, leaving each to fend for themselves, or to come together and create something more powerful. Terkel argues for the latter.

Terkel, does not merely ask the reader to consider his own story, but also summons the views of several other trusted figures in American history- Einstein, who acts as an acute observer of Western antipathy towards groups, and Thomas Paine, who affirms Terkel's view of the necessity of an active and thriving community. The use of these figures is an act of logos, adding reasoning to why the audience should consider Terkel's belief.

Terkel's article does not force the reader to establish "right" or "wrong" beliefs, but does ask his audience to consider this as epideictic rhetoric. Terkel addresses an audience that might foresee a crisis as terrifying as the Great Depression and asks them to consider where they could go from here. He offers an alternative to an "each to their own" mentality, arguing convincingly that no single person- no matter how intelligent or skilled- can hope to achieve as much as and active and unified community.