We have reached the end of the Age of Reading and started our descent down the slippery slope of digital distraction toward a post-literate future. But what does this mean? What is the true value of reading? How was the Library of Alexandria lost, anyway? And can any of these questions be answered in an audio-visual podcast? Join James for this contemplative exploration of the meaning and value of the written word.
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SHOW NOTES
The Library of Babel โ FLNWO #27
Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr.: Borges: South America’s Titan
The Borges clip Iย actually wanted to share: What is a book? Jorge Luis Borges in English [LECTURE]
Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman
A WWI Conspiracy reading list: WWI Q&A โ Questions For Corbett #042
A False Flag Reading List โ Questions For Corbett #093
How Colonial Americaโs Literacy Rates Shaped the Revolution
The Library of Alexandria is NOT on Fire!
The IMA/Solutions Watch panel will livestream a conversation on recommended books this Wednesday, July 29th at 7:00 PM Eastern (Toronto/New York) time. The link to this livestream is in this past weekend’s subscriber newsletter (scroll to the bottom for the link). Corbett Report members are invited to join the livestream and make their own book suggestions.
The next Film, Literature and the New World Order discussion on Umberto Eco’sย Foucault’s Pendulum will be livestreamed this Sunday at 8:00 PM Eastern (Toronto/New York) time. The link to that livestream will be published in next weekend’s August Open Thread post here on corbettreport.com. Stay tuned!
IMO reading has just become boring after consuming hundreds of books the past 75 of my 84 years. My ‘hard drive’ is pretty full of all the stuff I feel I need at this point in my life.
My first book I read was Earth Abides (1949) by George Stewart a Sci-Fi classic Classic of Pandemic, Survival, and Humanity’s Rebirth when I was 11 years old.
My last book (a couple of months ago) is “The Falsification of History” (2013) by John Hamer. An excellent read about a slew of false flags, lies, mis direction of humanity from the origin of the human race to food and nutrition to religion and spirituality, 700 pages of great stuff.
The 7 decades in between were filled with everything from metaphysics, sci-fi, novels, manuals, etc. that filled my curiosity as desired.
Can’t think of anything more I need to read about.
try We Have The Right To Exist by WUB-E-KE-NIEW
Went to my great-nephew’s charter school high school graduation; his 8th-grade teacher was there. She said she had transferred to a school in which they used real books and pencils; they taught cursive writing (which has its’ own neurological benefits), and their reading scores have skyrocketed. When I was a child, my mother took us to the library every other week and had us choose the books we wanted…I realize now how fortunate I am.
Regarding the high state of literacy in the days of the Founding Fathers, I believe that the momentum of this carried on for quite some time–well into the 1800’s.
I have friend that told me he was gifted with a children’s book from the 1880’s. I wish I’d seen it. What amazed him about the book was its high level of literacy. He claimed that he needed the dictionary to read it. And this, for children.
I love words and tend toward being a spelling and grammar cop. When I get on various social media forums, it so rankles me to see just how illiterate people are now. It doesn’t just make me angry, but I find it terrifying as well.
Speaking of my concerns about words and literacy, one particular word makes me want to pull out my hair. That is the noun, ‘consumer‘ and the verb, ‘to consume.’ I can’t help but think that this is an outgrowth of the infamous, “useless eaters” phrase.
I suspect that this word, ‘consumer,’ was pinned on the chattel by way of the cynical and high minded New World Order boys. I especially hate it when the word ‘consumer’ is used as a replacement for the term, ‘human being.’
We are ensouled miracles of Creation, not ‘animated things that waste resources.’ (That, to my mind, is more a description of governments and corporations. I just love how they utterly pollute and plunder this planet and then try to pin the guilt on the common man.)
I am old now and I remember the flush of excitement at the first stirrings of social media. It was genuinely exciting back then. Imagine being able to speak in real time to anyone, anywhere in the world!
I jumped into AOL chat rooms back in the day. It was then that I began to see ‘text speak’ appear. The acronym, LOL appeared for me for the first time.
Imho, we are quite srsly mentally compromised by it all, lol.
The acronymization of phrases, the truncation of words…it all reminds me of Orwell’s Newspeak. I began feeling that way back then.
In my belief system, the ability to spell, to learn new words, to use proper grammar, refines the mind. But now, things are so bad that young people may actually shrug off the very idea refining the mind.
I hope this isn’t true. I’d love to see a renaissance of art, music, literature and a growing respect for self expression by way of the well-stated and well-written word.
Do you think they tested voice to skull technology on Philip K Dick and that’s what the Valis trilogy was all about?
Hey James, I clicked on Rumble Link -as video here to stop/start- but it directs to CR video re Lindsey Graham and not current video which doesn’t as yet appear on that platform. I will now try substack : ) Cheers
I really enjoyed that video, even though I feel mildly shamed.
Now, I look around my room at all the books I own and have read and say, outloud, in my defense โhey, man, I read.โ
But, Corbett does have a point and is right that we, as a society, donโt read as much as we used to. Easy access to search engines and A.I. has led us to a degree of intellectual atrophy.
Foucaultโs Pendulum, though. Yeah, thatโs a rough read. I canโt find an edge on it. I canโt get a toehold on it. Attempting to read it embarrasses me, and I feel like a dullard. Itโs just not a book that I think I will ever have any affection.
But this is why itโs good to read, and rewrite stories that have already been written. A reinterpretation of a story may be more easily digestible, allowing for the core messages and information to be more easily read by people with different learning styles.
I disagree with Corbett, though, when he says that short form video wonโt unify us into a fighting force. I think short clips, with very simplified and direct messages will (and are) waking people up. Iโve seen plenty of shorts that have absolutely infuriated me with what the State has been doing.
We do need intellectuals.
We need thoughtful, sensitive people to write well researched papers, to publish for the public.
But we also need that guy who stands on a soap box in a town square and lays it out in simple terms how we are being violated and controlled.
All these forms of media have use and serve a purpose. Theyโre all just tools to transfer information from one person to another. One tool may be more useful than another, depending on the person, venue and situation.
I donโt think short form is bad.
Written communication, books and articles have their place in the arsenal. Short form will never replace what books can provide.
My money would be Ellul having read more than Borges but I suspect there’s no market for that question on the exchanges.