THE Philosopher
https://open.substack.com/pub/kittenbeloved/p/college-english-majors-cant-read?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=na6ey
When English literature students try to read and interpret English literature
Universal literacy was supposed to educate the common man to control his environment. Once he could read and write he would have a mind fit to rule. So ran the democratic doctrine. But instead of a mind, universal literacy has given him rubber stamps, rubber stamps inked with advertising slogans, with editorials, with published scientific data, with the trivialities of the tabloids and the platitudes of history, but quite innocent of original thought. Each man's rubber stamps are the duplicates of millions of others, so that when those millions are exposed to the same stimuli, all receive identical imprints. It may seem an exaggeration to say that the American public gets most of its ideas in this wholesale fashion. The mechanism by which ideas are disseminated on a large scale is propaganda, in the broad sense of an organized effort to spread a particular belief or doctrine.
—Edward L. Bernays, Propaganda
Reading makes them wise?
Ha! Just fills their heads with noise.
They're still clueless fools.
Ha! Just fills their heads with noise.
They're still clueless fools.
Bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk!
Someone help me. How does this make sense? How can you stand in a seat? Does not being in a seat require that one be sitting? In the parlour of life, where each soul is seated securely, one might ponder: Does not the very act of occupying such a position demand that one assume the posture of repose, as is customary for those who find themselves thus situated? Yet, behold the paradox, for to stand upon that which is meant for sitting is to defy the very essence of its design, much like the urchin who, in his audacity, stands upon the throne of the king. In the grand scheme of things, where every action is a node in the vast network of causality, the act of standing in a seat might seem trivial, yet it is fraught with implications. In this world of hidden meanings, where nothing is as it seems, even the simplest gesture can be a cipher, a code waiting to be deciphered. Does not the seat, that humble piece of furniture, hold within it the seeds of rebellion against the established order? Seat, seat, what is a seat but a throne for the posterior, a resting place for the weary, yet here I am, erect, perpendicular to the horizontal, defying the gravitational pull that would have me succumb to the cushion's embrace. Does not being in a seat necessitate sitting? Or is it that the seat, in its silent acquiescence, allows for such rebellion, a silent protest against the tyranny of convention, and if so, what does that say about me, about us, about the very fabric of our existence? Seatofthesoul, where the Körper finds its Ruhe, but what if the Geist stands, aufrecht in its Wesen, while the Fleisch remains auf dem Thron? Does the Sitz demand the Sitzen, or does the Sitzen define the Sitz? In the wake of Seatigan, where all is Wache and all is Traum, the seat stands as a Symbol, a Signifikant without a fixed Signifikat, floating in the Meer of Semiotik, where to sitzen is to stehen is to sitzen wieder, ad infinitum, in a cycle as endless as the Vico road.
The Bible is a tremendously difficult book, filled with metaphorical complexity, intricate prophetic connections spanning disparate books, archaic language, shifting narrative perspectives, and dense symbolic imagery that often obscures clear interpretation. People have, contrary to the lib consensus, been blessed with different abilities; some have the ability to interpret and understand the Bible despite the above complexities, while most do not. Understanding of innate human inequality thus leads us to clerical exclusivity; those gifted with the ability to read the Bible well ought to do so while others ought not to, and some in that camp of skilled readers ought also to distill its messages and transmit them, in simplified form, to the wider public who cannot be trusted to interpret the Bible for themselves.
Look at what happens when literature students try to read "The Declaration of Independence." These are students whose primary area of study is reading. And they cannot do it. Now imagine normal people trying to read something even more complicated and difficult. How is that likely to go? Would you trust such people with reading something like that well if the very fate of their souls is what's at stake?
The fact that basically nobody can read is pretty funny, you have to admit. How much of what you believe about the world is based on the proposition that the average person can read? And what would you have to update if that weren’t true?