Lost in Thought, Part 5
Dear Reader,
I must admit that Chapter 2 of Lost in Thought doesn’t have as much material for reading specifically. It has a metric ton for the intellectual life. And thus it’s a rich chapter, especially if you’ve ever worked through questions about the purpose of education or what value the intellectual life has. But for the reading life, narrowly speaking, the chapter doesn’t lend itself to easy insights or quotations.
(In fact, the ones I’d marked for this essay I decided weren’t useful once I set about writing.)
I’ve decided on Zena Hitz’s exploration of what she calls “the love of spectacle.” Though it isn’t her chapter’s focus in the slightest, she uses one paragraph to explicitly highlight Twitter reading. What she describes can easily be translated over to any online reading and even print forms of reading, but Twitter does habituate the love of spectacle, humbling many otherwise keen readers. And not merely humbling, but reshaping how they read:
“The love of spectacle wallows in novelty and negativity; it prefers the thrill of the shocking news story, the horror of revelation, to the quiet, truthful correction. So too the desire to see the spectacle is somehow bound up with wanting to be a spectacle oneself: we are drawn into displaying ourselves as we have seen others displayed. Thus, we while away the hours in a reciprocal display with others who are bored, restless, lonely, and addicted to outrage.”
I know, I’ve chosen the depressing part of her chapter. (The rest of it isn’t remotely this dour, and even this segment is followed by a hope-filled response.)
For Hitz, the love of spectacle replaces the love of learning. The love of spectacle is essentially a false substitute. Indeed, even though I disagree with Neil Postman’s assessment of analytic reading, part of what he’s arguing against is the love of spectacle. While I think Postman overcorrects in his attempt, what he says about reading in Amusing Ourselves to Death—and more broadly (and prophetically) says about the love of spectacle in general—does counterbalance the love of spectacle.
Reading for the love of spectacle can be similar to a hate-read (I’ll be writing about this one soonish!), but not all love-of-spectacle reading is necessarily a hate-read. A hate-read can be one undertaken in “quiet, truthful correction”; reading for the love of spectacle seeks only the thrill, only the desire for spectacle.
Reading for spectacle is also not a form of Agnes Callard’s reading for socializing, though perhaps it’s a knock-off version of it. The “reciprocal display,” as Hitz calls it, almost seems antisocial on a deeper level. If it’s a display, the reader is showing off, and I’ve at least never found show-offs to be the most social of individuals, however much they need people around them.
Still, reading for socializing, reading for the love of spectacle, reading for the love of learning—what do these share in common and where do they part ways?
Happy reading to you,
Kreigh
P.S. Speaking of Agnes Callard, she had a great quote this week about what sort of reading comprehension a person ideally gains while in college. You can hear that and more in this three-minute excerpt from her interview with EconTalk. And for the poor students who’ve been in one of my reading seminars, you’ll find that she takes the position almost every other sane person does: you should read some Plato before you ever try Aristotle. (Even those who introduce Aristotle first will re-order his writings so that they are more appealing.) But even though I fully grant her point—and it’s well made—I’ll persist in my approach to teaching Aristotle first, without re-ordering, for reasons whimsical and pedagogical.
P.P.S. For those newer subscribers wondering how we’re on Part 5 already, here are parts 1, 2, 3, and 4. And on a related note, Princeton University Press has 50% Off ALL books and free shipping until June 28, including for Lost in Thought!