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 – FLNWO #27
Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr.: Borges: South America’s Titan
The Borges clip I 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 – Questions For Corbett #042
A False Flag Reading List – Questions For Corbett #093
How Colonial America’s 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’s 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
I said there is NOTHING more I need to read about. And your suggestion that comes with no explanation of why I should isn’t very compelling to change that hey?
I posted above about brain building and destruction. Use it or lose it.
@Random…
Since I was the first to post I have no idea just what you posted ‘above’ and why the talking down to me like I am a child. Internet anonymity breeds no civil accountability. Try spending more then a dozen words to articulate your point.
Amazing cheers! …Since you have all these amazing insights why don’t you try to now use your knowledge to try & “solve” some of the problems in the world? Best regards
Sugar coating a put down BF??
We all have our journeys and abilities. Since I have been shot at, phone tapped, tailed and more as an authentic social/political activist, since 1965 I believe I have right to not take any sh*t from some web stranger. Go listen to my music and see if you can get a grip on who I am and what I have been doing, so WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN DOING THE PAST SIXTY YEARS??
A PSYCHIC EPIDEMIC (song)
https://old.bitchute.com
/video/1hqeShieZ2jY/
SOLUTIONS (essay)
https://old.bitchute.com/video/TsqcMC9tPGg2/
Sorry you took it that way, it wasn’t meant as a put down, as you seem such a knowledgeable person, I was being quite sincere.
Billy,
Hope things are well down-under in Australia this winter season. If ya need any, there is plenty of heat up topside in Japan, Europe and the U.S.
I just wanted to mention that I’ve always liked your positive, encouraging and friendly perspective on things. I am glad that you are on these comment boards.
@Billy
Thanks for the get back.
In my experience, some here seem to need attention posting thousands of words every episode and the rare comments to me often fall into the nit picking type, so sorry, just a reactive reply.
Hence my line in my song “What Needs To Be Said”:
“Deep thinkers on the Internet sharing shallow lies, everyone’s an Einstein till they’re not.”
Apparently you’re from down under. I have and had many connections with Aussies and even keep up with the reset info with Campbell’s ‘Autodidactic.’ Back in October 2021 I dedicated a song to you folks that a mate (Scotty Zee) and I had done in 2005 in a cave in Griffith Park in Hollywood, him on Dige me on Japanese Ushiwa Daiko (hand held drum.)
https://old.bitchute.com/video/B1SEiNbLsyk6/
My best to you.
Wow, how wonderful. I read “Earth Abides” sometime in 1994 and loved it. It still comes to mind from time to time. It was an incredible novel. I did, however, grow tired of the obvious repeated story lines in novels over the years and have now gravitated to reading the books written by spiritual enthusiasts like Alan Watts, and Jacob Kuker. Reading has become a bit more difficult as I get older, as my vision is getting weaker and I find it an increasing challenge to stay with it.
Yeah, his writing was quite good. I can still feel Ish’s amazement at when out of habit he hit the bathroom light switch and nothing, referencing the eventual wearing down of the electrical generators without maintenance, part of Stewart’s ongoing talk about the aging process like Ish’s child making arrow heads out of silver half dollars, or the reference to Bay Bridge breaking down, etc.
His relationship with a Black woman during the real time 50’s was pretty cool!!
Nothing like living in Berkeley in 1968, brewing fresh coffee, reading the Sunday Chronicle and listening to Alan Watts on KPFA, and feeling something VERY special was going on.
An early sci-fi fan then I got interested in history and then lots of non-fiction.
Sorry ’bout the eyesight issue. I have glaucoma in my right eye and about a fifth or so is fuzzing out. My main reading issue as I said, is with a very large eclectic taste for knowledge I have covered quite the menu of subjects and my ‘hard drive’ 🙂 is pretty full as well as lack of the youthful curiosity.
Thanks.
I MISS THE OLD DAYS (song)
https://old.bitchute.com/video/o2Z7IlZLjadH/
“Nothing like living in Berkeley in 1968, brewing fresh coffee, reading the Sunday Chronicle and listening to Alan Watts on KPFA, and feeling something VERY special was going on.”. but reading the NY Times literary review section! and the free press.
@Cormie
>>but reading the NY Times literary review section! and the free press. >>
An incomplete thought there for me Cormie??
Never been a Times person. Nor any sort of literary review anywhere. A working class dude. 🙂 Not sure what free press you are pointing out.
We had the Berkeley Barb in the Bay Area something from LA, can’t recall the name, maybe “The Oracle??” I wasn’t really into any ‘movement stuff’ just checking what people like Herb Cane had to say about the SF Bay Area and things like that.
I had been working part time at KPFA Pacifica Radio in Berkeley and that is where I discovered Alan Watts. He lived sorta near by in Sausalito.
We read the San Francisco Express Times and the San Francisco Oracle and of course the Barb.
I was also working class, at CAL and liked to read. KPFA was wonderful in those days with story telling and radio plays.
Allan Watts was extraordinary for softly changing your perspectives.
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.
vincognito,
I like what you wrote…it quickly paints a broad mural of society.
Very eloquently and succinctly put. It horrifies me as well to think that illiteracy and a new Dark Age may be looming on the not too distant horizon.
vincognito
“….the ability to spell, to learn new words, to use proper grammar, refines the mind….”
That is probably so, you might find Julian Jayne’s “the bicameral mind” book interesting regarding that subject- there is an idea that humans didn’t have conscious thoughts until we had a “space” to have them.
He kinda saw all abstract ideas as metaphors for physical things that got abstracted out into new ideas in themselves….nit sure he was totally right but it looks at thinking and consciousness in a new light.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origin_of_Consciousness_in_the_Breakdown_of_the_Bicameral_Mind
A long time ago, I was subletting an apartment. The owner of the place had that book on his shelf. It was a fascinating read, although, like you, I’m not sure he was totally right but an interesting thinker he was.
When I was in 11th grade we went to visit my grandmother who lived in Saratoga Springs New York.She was born in 1890. I was rummaging around the old carriage house across the alley from the main house and found a trove of her schoolbooks. None of them were easy reads and the questions at the end of the chapters were ALL essay questions requiring much thought and rereading to answer correctly. I was enrolled in a very rigorous prep school and was surprised that these books were decidedly more difficult than those in my school.That was 1971.
A radio show of Rush Limbaugh’s said that to graduate 8th grade a written test had to be passed (to get into high school) in 1900. It was so difficult few college grads could pass it today. I had 6 years of college in the ’60s and most of my ed came from outside reading. I disagreed with Dr. Jones in US History on the cause of the “Civil” war in my term paper, got a B. It was 18 pages, with extensive foot notes. The average paper was 3-5 pages. My prep was a 1600 page biography of Stonewall Jackson, by his adjunct in 1873. I read the Austrian economists for my Econ paper, constantly corrected my Econ professor – got a B. My class on Aristotle last year at the University, was taught by a Phd who constantly misrepresented and once even lied. He said Plato & Aristotle opposed each other but Plato wrote better “Dialogues” (implying he was superior). I corrected him – reminding him only 25% of Aristotle’s work was recovered, but he was known for his “Golden Dialogues”.
😁 👍
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 “hey, man, I read.”
But, Corbett does have a point and is right that we, as a society, don’t read as much as we used to. Easy access to search engines and A.I. has led us to a degree of intellectual atrophy.
Foucault’s Pendulum, though. Yeah, that’s a rough read. I can’t find an edge on it. I can’t get a toehold on it. Attempting to read it embarrasses me, and I feel like a dullard. It’s just not a book that I think I will ever have any affection.
But this is why it’s 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 won’t unify us into a fighting force. I think short clips, with very simplified and direct messages will (and are) waking people up. I’ve 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. They’re 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 don’t 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.
Bird,
I lean with you on that last paragraph.
Narrative is the most powerful weapon.
Short or long, delivering the message(s) is how we can carve the narrative.
Tools like “attract attention and interest” are crucial when communicating a message.
Each person has their own interests, buttons and preferences.
When delivering a message, there are different types of audiences.
Reading a tome may be repellent to some folks who view academics as snotty high-horses. However, the soap box guy is someone who many ‘regular folks’ can identify with.
Yes, and there are a few soapbox apps on the net today, like Substack and others.
Bird
”…... I think short clips, with very simplified and direct messages will (and are) waking people up. I’ve seen plenty of shorts that have absolutely infuriated me with what the State has been doing….”
As AA would say “Your anger Their Agenda”….. the anger is useful to them as long as it’s confused and ignorant and easily steered into directions the elite find useful……as to the guy in the soap box I agree but you must accept that if he steers the mob to overthrow the elite HE will become the new elite and the mob will still be ruled by those whI possess the capacity of reason.
At the end of the day most people are peasants who want to live happy peasant lives and THAT IS FINE. You won’t wake them up because they don’t want to wake up, they just want a non evil ruler.
mr Parvini is “academic agent “ on YT but here is the talk on some one else’s show
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rzxK_xWofDk&ra=m
Duck,
You have a valid point: “…most people are peasants who want to live happy peasant lives…they don’t want to wake up.”
However, I’ll add an important caveat:
Viewpoints and attitudes of an individual can swiftly change which might prompt a peasant to become more actively aware.
Examples: The Pandemic insanity. …or… An injustice within that person’s sphere …or… more free time to explore ideas.
———————————————————
— Promotion of Ideas and Concepts — Delivering a message
Certainly a book or article can communicate idea(s).
A message/concept can also be communicated via a sign, flyer, bumper sticker, advertisement, short video or long documentary.
“Men at some time are masters of their fates: The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.”
It is our own inaction and our own submission to the status quo with its ‘learned helplessness’ that invites us to do no outreach of important messages.
So, I say: “Let’s not poo-poo an outreach of important messages, short or long. Short or long, delivering the message(s) is how we can carve the narrative.”
James Corbett says:
“Sending more context could be a good move, but don’t drown them in evidence.”
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1C0uOMYQnVw
— Corbett Report Shorts —
https://www.youtube.com/@corbettreport/shorts
My money would be Ellul having read more than Borges but I suspect there’s no market for that question on the exchanges.
Borges is illuminati, of course. From the Borgia Dynasty. There is a link to Aleister Crowley through Xul Solar. La Plata and Buenos Aires being designed by Freemasons. (https://www.bowtiedmara.io/p/freemasons-in-argentina)
While taking a stroll in Buenos Aires I stopped and stared at the Loteria Nacional, a curious site.
Informe Sobre Ciegos a recommended read.
Someone who no doubt understood this literacy topic and tried to address it in fiction was DFW.
My friend tried reading that The End of Reading is Here article weeks ago but was blocked by the paywall lol.
I remember applying for a job as a doorman years and years ago at a famous hotel in the city. I was reading Candide by Voltaire as I waited and I got a strange comment about it. I think it actually hurt my chances. One of my favorite jobs was delivering pizzas. I’d read on my phone while the food got ready. I think I ran through Henry Miller’s first couple of books. When I delivered the za there’d be the mom there to pay and her child would invariably be at her side, maybe holding her, but they rarely looked up at me: too hypnotized by their screen (and this was more than a decade ago).
“The most difficult adjustment an expatriate has to make, on returning to his native land, is in this realm of conversation. The impression one has, at first, is that there is no conversation. We do not talk—we bludgeon one another with facts and theories gleaned from cursory readings of newspapers, magazines, and digests.” ~1941
The screens now are dual-use, and can be used as weapons against us. Not just to gather data, but to inflict bodily harm.
Freemasons say you have to interpret the symbols for yourself. In the Borges link James provided, Borges says “for the words themselves are mere symbols – spring into life” for the reader.
–
I met a psychiatrist, Victoria Duckley, who said when she heard schools were not going to teach cursive anymore, she wept. The act of pen/pencil/paper was fundamental to brain development and especially for girls who would experiment with different handwriting styles as part of their personality development. I cry every day over my daughter’s lack of reading, her tik tok videos and that her cell phone never leaves her hand. Despite my telling her that her 3 year old son needs her to be present, she spends half her time with him texting. I am glad to hear that Jim uses a pen and paper to write as I also enjoy writing with a fountain pen. The tactile experience of using a fountain pen cannot be matched by poking away at the computer. The pen and paper doesn’t profile your thoughts, likes, dislikes, typing style, etc. Glad that Corbett hasn’t given up and is fighting despite the lack of hope in any future.
I read that Stephen King always and only wrote his books on a yellow legal pad.
In Florida, Governor Desantis made cursive instruction mandatory in the schools.
“I cry every day…” Stop crying and start parenting! Limit her phone time to equal time reading – Ayn Rand would be start.
Wireless
”…Glad that Corbett hasn’t given up and is fighting despite the lack of hope in any future…”
There is plenty of hope for the future, just for people who actually pay attention and act upon information they gather…..the only people who are certainly doomed are people who do nothing.
It’s a selection event , not the end of the world
I’m going to disagree with just the title, because they do want you to read; they just want you to read smut. lol
By the time I was 10, I have stuff from Superfudge to Shakespeare to Stephen King in my small library.
Now that I have time on my hands, I’ve been writing a story I’ve been formulating pieces of for nearly the entirety of my life. The fact that not a lot of people read anymore is actually a reason why I’m writing it: because if there ever is any popularity out of the story, it will probably be after I’m dead. I have no interest in turning it into a movie or anything.
video mark 13:20 “do you think we’ll be able to overthrow the tyrants with youtube videos,,,?”
James, are you throwing yourself under the bus?
I find I skim like never before, throwing away hours of what would have been repetition or waiting, lotsa writing these days is so slow to get to its point: wall paper wall paper wall paper idea wall paper wall paper wall paper same idea wall paper,,
10 years ago after the dumb phones had fully landed, I could be heard whinging about how people, especially teen-agers, have stopped completing sentences. but Australia has a cultural fetish of nicknaming or short form trick or comic labeling the goal is to minimize descriptive effort
reducing the reading capacity is a dumbing down technique
I hated being told in Aus, “we have our biquies for breakies.” Grow up! Talk like adults!
style by style, many different, but inside question, same same. its true most cultures have styles that are gonna clash with somebody. The bright side to Australian sing song indifference is the deferral to a humbler perspective about how cooked, bent, and even absurd the system is. An aussie could give a rats ass about hardship. if the lingo’s got you round the twist, know that there is a lighter self-effacing side we’re gunning for.
James, are you part of the cabal that dragged us into podcasting away from reading?
I just Read an article about how compared to Scrolling, reading builds brain strength and capability while scrolling leads to brain weakening as the brain prunes away unused synapses. It is an ongoing process throughout life. So as we age, unless we strenuously use our brain the pruning process is removing synapses continuously. Reading is a great way to build the brain. Its not the only way of course. Learning any new skill also builds brain synapses. Use it or lose it, literally.
The book of 9/11 evidence & the 2 x whistleblower cases they don’t want you to read.
A whole industry has been created – A whole “truth” movement, to have people NOT look at the evidence presented TO COURT in 2007, all whilst they are gaslighting good intentioned truth seekers with stories of remote-controlled planes or drones, CGI TV video fakery, bombs, and thermite for a controlled demolition or even buried or mini nukes.
Making sure people NEVER look at the anomalies with the 9/11 orphans, buildings 3, 4, 5, 6 and the Bankers Trust building, because if people do, they will immediately see the problems with the 9/11 truther narratives that are being SOLD to them.
Good intentioned truth seekers are FUNDING the greater cover-up of the truth of what happened on 9/11.
Have a listen and read the 2007 court filings you’re NOT supposed to know about..
Dr Reynolds’ 2007 whistle-blower case against NIST, was for the fraudulent WTC plane impact reports: https://nomoregames.net/2011/06/12/request-for-correction-by-nist-for-its-invalid-wtc-jetliner-animations-and-analyses/
Dr Wood’s 2007 whistle-blower case against NIST, was for the destruction at the WTC complex: https://www.doctorjudywood.com/articles/NIST/Qui_Tam_Wood.html/
Wikipedia’s block listed 9/11 scientist.
Cancelled by Wikipedia, MSM and the 9/11 “truth” movement, for 20 years and counting.
Article: https://911revision.substack.com/p/wikipedias-block-listed-911-scientist
9/11 Jersey Girl’s THIRD Bombshell Open Letter: Half-Truths Are Still Whole Lies
Patricia Casazza to Richard Gage & 9/11 Truth Leaders:End the Half-Truths Now!
Open Letter: https://911revision.substack.com/p/911-jersey-girl-drops-third-open
911 Revisionist, aka Mr. SPAM
YOUR NAME IS MUD !!!
You have blatantly and knowingly disrespected Corbett Members and the Community!
You refused to make things right!
Just days ago, 911 Revisionist SPAMMED this webpage and Corbett Members with 5 duplicate entries and one general post. That is 6 total comments of the same ilk on a board with 22 comments at the time of his posting.
Corbett Report Members do not behave so rudely.
With such disrespect, Mr. SPAM Revisionist, you discredit your name and anything that you say.
So you are replacing the very solid evidence against the Pentagon
with..
a weird theory about fake movies, fake witnesses, fake deaths,
fake physics and fake planes?
Ever considered that this weird theory is fake?
A theory that states that the secret government is
ultimately powerful with invisible incomprehensible weapons.
This theory is weirder than what I heard from people
who are clearly suffering psychosis.
But the fear is very similar.
So take care of your mind.
IF you are really interested in LENR..
I know a lot about the physics behind LENR and it is very different from
the physics of 911.
[Here is a channel devoted to this research](https://www.youtube.com/@MFMP)
The 911 is all chemistry related, with well know thermite mixtures and explosives.
Just as they normally use with demolition.
And all necessary components have been found.
And they also put the concrete into dust and cause chemical burns on cars.
It takes a while to learn about the millions of chemicals that can be used.
I believe it was Plato who lamented the then new technology of phonetic writing and reading because he argued it degraded the capacity of the mind to learn by rote – the former method of acquiring and passing down knowledge from generation to generation.
It is somewhat ironic that we now lament the disappearance of reading and writing for similar reasons.
There is a fascinating book I read many years ago called Orality and Literacy by Walter J. Ong that examined the change in psychology, worldview and mental capacity that the the technology of the written word introduced. A mixed blessing. Some capacities gained, some lost.
As for the affects of the endless news-feed / entertainment scroll of social media delivered by digital technology, one only has to read comments left by youtubers and the like to see how much and how fast our ability to think and communicate clearly has degraded.
Or perhaps this lack of capacity was always present among the majority and it is the opportunity of social media for everyone and their dog to express their opinions that has made this dearth of intellect evident to all. I’ll let you. dear reader, decide.
What struck me most in this episode is the power of the diagnosis. James, you convincingly show that we are not dealing with a dramatic burning of the Library of Alexandria, but with something quieter and more dangerous: neglect. The books yellow, attention fragments, the capacity to follow and hold complex sentences diminishes, and a society that can no longer read can ultimately no longer think — and therefore can no longer resist the ongoing fragmentation of attention, the superficiality of information consumption, and the gradual erosion of deep, concentrated consciousness.
That diagnosis is legitimate and urgent. The figures on declining literacy, the shift toward short videos, the shrinking attention span, and the silence with which this shift is taking place all deserve attention. The resistance Corbett proposes — a return to the book, to deep reading, to the linearity of the printed page — is equally meaningful. Without that capacity, serious analysis and resistance are indeed difficult to imagine.
Yet this approach also skips a fundamental step that is characteristic of what I here call post-industrial thinking. What I mean by that is the tendency to approach human development primarily through skills, institutions, behaviour, and cultural practices (in this case: reading), while the individual structure of perception, consciousness, and meaning-making largely remains out of view.
Reading is not the origin of thinking, but one of the powerful ways in which thinking can deepen. It is a form of attention, of linear concentration, of holding and processing complex structures of meaning. But that capacity does not grow by itself, and not in the same way for every human being.
The prior question remains largely unanswered: how does a human being actually unlock the capacity to read deeply, to concentrate, to form meaning, and to hold complex arguments? How does the attention arise that is needed to carry a long sentence or an entire book? How do people differ in the ways they perceive, reflect, abstract, and make meaning? And what does that mean for the ways we try to restore literacy, learning, and mental sovereignty?
These questions are not secondary. They form the ground on which the skill of reading can only become alive. Without insight into that underlying structure, the call to “read more” remains a moral and cultural appeal that reaches some people, but can no longer land with a growing number of others — precisely because the conditions under which consciousness can unlock itself are systematically being undermined.
Perhaps the most important challenge of our time is therefore not only how we combat the post-literate society, but how we finally learn to understand how human intelligence, consciousness, and attention develop individually. As long as that question remains open, our ideas about reading, education, and mental sovereignty will remain incomplete — precisely because we follow the post-industrial tendency to try to restore humanity mainly through skills and cultural practices, without seriously addressing the deeper layer of how consciousness is unlocked.
The call to read remains essential. But perhaps the greater challenge of our time is not to get people reading again. Perhaps the greater challenge is finally to understand how people learn, how consciousness unlocks itself individually, and how meaning arises. Only when we truly understand that layer can reading, education, technology, and culture once again find their place as means that support human development, rather than unintentionally narrowing it.
I read a lot of books – mostly in bed, as my bedroom is a tech-free zone. I have a close relative who only “reads” audiobooks – she has a high-powered job and says she is too busy to sit down and read. I think this is the reason that reading has declined – people lead busier lives and have more distractions. In the old days people had long evenings to fill. Now people collapse in front of their TV or tech gadget. I don’t think they know what they’re missing. A good book can convey you to another time and place in a way that TV or tech cannot.
It is terrible how busy working people have to be to survive. (I am retired.) My children read for hours on end, living in the country, homeschooling and no TV was a boon. Yet, now many of my children (7) don’t read and neither do my grandchildren. My youngest son was an avid reader but now only listens to audiobooks on his commute! Usually fiction because he doesn’t have the bandwidth for more deep leisurely reading as his profession requires enormous hours. I hate it.
— Temperatures in Japan —
It has been very hot in the U.S.A. and parts of Europe this July. In Japan too.
I couldn’t help but to think of the sunny climes of western Japan in July.
In “Episode 506 – They Don’t Want You To Read…” James Corbett goes outside to sit under a tree…in late July!
I guess it did not qualify as one of those official “Extreme Heat Days,” a new designation in Japan.
(see video)
Japan bakes under record heat as temperatures top 40°C (104F)
7:06 minute video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sEn8qNw0Vw
Japan Weather Forecast for Travelers
https://www.japan.travel/en/weather/
Brilliant as usual – thank you – just one thing to add – In 1995, a Canadian journalist named Serge Monast published the Toronto Protocols. He claimed that in June 1967, a secret meeting of the world’s largest banks, energy consortia, and agri-food corporations took place in Toronto to plan the collapse of nation-states. The document was called “Bread and Circus.” Its strategy: poison agriculture, weaken minds, and render populations incapable of resistance. Monast was labelled a conspiracy theorist. His children were taken by the state. He was arrested, spent a night in jail, and died of a heart attack the next day. He was 51.
I don’t know if the Toronto Protocols are real.
But I know what happened in 1967. Connecticut became the first state to mandate fluoride in drinking water. Illinois, Minnesota, and Kentucky followed. The second-largest fluoridation expansion in American history. That same year, the British Parliament passed the Iron and Steel Act, nationalizing the steel industry. Across Europe, high-phosphorus converters shut down. Basic slag, a cadmium-free fertilizer that had covered European pasture for eighty years, stopped being produced. The UK had to import an additional 450,000 to 500,000 tonnes of North African rock phosphate per year, a 40% increase. North Africa has the highest cadmium concentrations in the world.
Cadmium impairs working memory. It accumulates in the hippocampus. In 1977, McGill researchers separated learning-disabled children from normal children with 98% accuracy based on cadmium in their hair. In 2012, Harvard found children with higher cadmium were three times more likely to have learning disabilities, at exposure levels every child experiences. Fluoride lowers IQ. The National Toxicology Program and JAMA Pediatrics have now confirmed it.
Neither toxin was regulated for decades. The EU set cadmium limits in 2019. Fifty-two years later.
Two neurotoxins. Two continents. Two routes of administration. One through the tap. One through the dinner plate. Same year. Same target: the developing brains of children. Same result: a population that struggles to read, to remember, to think.
I’m not asking you to believe in secret meetings. I’m asking you to look at the timeline and explain it some other way. Monast died before anyone took him seriously. But 1967 happened. Whether he was a prophet or a madman, whether the document is genuine or fiction, you can call it a coincidence. You can call it a plan. But you cannot call it nothing.
Hi James, thank you for your timely nudge to read more. I do find myself watching a lot of podcasts which is a much more 2 dimensional activity than reading. I have plunged back into a book that I inherited from my father. It gives an historical perspective on the Jews and their place in history spanning from pre Christian Palestine up to the mid twentieth Century, it is called “The Controversy of Zion” by Douglas Reed. It was published in South Africa in the late 1970s so has a scope ending in this era. However do not let that put you off, it is very well written and Reed was a British journalist in retirement. You can find a copy at Archive.org if you are interested in sampling good well written prose. The Pen is indeed mightier than the Sword.
Great work James. I posted a comment at Corbett Report on Substack about 11hrs ago which attempted to make the point, & badly, that reading can not get you the quality, speed or depth of knowledge that following searches and algorithms on the internet can get you. Perhaps due to the speed of access to information, its availability & currency, and also, the communications & discussions re a topic one can get on internet is far superior than is possible from “reading” & “books/libraries”. ANYWAY HOW TERRIBLE CENSORSHIP IS GETTING?.. after quite a long time writing this comment, & admittedly wasn’t too hot, Substack did not show ANY comments on Corbett platform there??…..& seems this is often is the case at Substacks now (I know it the tyrants new TERRIBLE laws). However, it is really a BAD, BAD, BAD… because one of the best way one has had in past of attaining better insights & knowledge (since advent of internet communications) is from readers shared comments.,.& the sharing of writers & readers views creates some synergy that reading alone does not. Possibly this FREE uncensored speech/writing and the knowledge & thoughts it provided was why so many folks went to Substack??… So now internet/Substack has censorship too? Along with academic, library & MSM et al censorship?.., it is a very, very important thing. This is killing of internet comments & communications could be the final solution to the “burning of books & libraries”? ,,,Perhaps worthy of another new probing & “Solutions” report by JC. Thanks & cheers JC!
Another thought is reading takes time…nowadays one can listen to “writings/reading/podcasts etc” & be doing other things one wants to do at the same time. It is more efficient. And it is great for many folks getting more “learning”. I have a long range bluetooth transmitter so can listen with headphones or bluetooth receivers at fairly long distances all around home & yard whilst also doing jobs etc. Might be helpful for others to know this? Cheers James.
Books,,I do love reading, and yes, nowadays mostly online. Bc of tumbling times. Many books on my shelves to be read, Reportage, the final chapter. Ayn Rand. Atlas shrugged. But..everything at it’s own time. The Dutch famers are refucked again, so time and energy goes there for now.
But in the meantime James, I’ve got this article for you about Japan, the first domino stone to drop:
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/japan/japan-is-the-first-domino-in-the-sovereign-debt-crisis/
You don’t wanna talk to Armstrong. Too bad. It’s always good if curious minds get together..
James, yesterday when I tried watching the video on this page, it was VERY slow. So I tried the alternative, archive.org link:
https://archive.org/details/archive-org_1d80f229f5fc932b816ab33d2895e51a734af0d8
but it was a NWNW video. So I tried the YouTube link, and it played okay. Later, today the video on this page was okay also. FYI.
I just finished and recommend the book,
GOING TO TEHRAN: Why America Must Accept The Islamic Republic of Iran
by Flynt and Hillary Leverett
I almost finished watching this Episode 506 in tears, and I say almost because you immediately proposed the Solutions Watch panel, in which I would LOVE to contribute with Saramago’s Ensaio sobre a cegueira, Blindness, an author who seemed to predict the times to come decades in advance. I read this novel in Spanish in 1996, the year of its publication, and was struck.
My work and my memory may prevent me from participating, which is why I just wanted to mention this book, which is so fitting for the times we live in. By the way, I was a student of Umberto Eco, who taught semiotics in Bologna… https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=263866853410893
acquired a copy of this recently so thank you for the reminder to read it
Thank you James, Excellent piece, profoundly on point and a necessary reminder of the effort – in itself rewarding, enriching and truly educational – required to retain freedom.
As a lifelong reading enthusiast, I have indeed noticed that scrolling pulls me away from my books. I read much, much less these days. Your analysis is spot on. I have been attributing my comprehension difficulties to my advanced age, but perhaps it’s just the influence of media. I still love reading, but do find i often struggle and must re-read certain paragraphs 2 or 3 times.
i wish i could read more. about 8-10 weeks ago i started loosing my eyesight :-/. got me some reading glasses last week, and i can read better. had good eyes actually, close up it gets blurry. but reading always made me tired and sleepy.
REPORTAGE was btw. the second ever english book i’ve ever read.
I discovered myself turning a hundred times to my phone, my laptop, my etc while “watching” this episode. That’s the damage I have now. I however force myself to read, I swear. The book I’m currently reading is from Pedro Baños: La geopolítica de la mente. I used to read more before social media, that was the time I read Humberto Eco, El péndulo de Foucault. Lord! I missed that
I’m racing to try to get through Foucault’s Pendulum. I don’t think I’ve ever had to look up more new words in a book than in this one. Right from chapter one, isochronal, sublunar pentaculum, ogives, chthonian. whew.
Great, so do you think James’ choice of novel is kind of a wink at The Corbett Report audience and could be related to this, and perhaps even to this?
Yep, very obviously a sequel to the Bacon one. Haven’t watched the pyramid of power yet, or finished Foucault’s Pendulum so I have a lot to catch up with.
Everything OK earthquake-wise in Corbett’s neck of the woods, I hope? I don’t know where he lives.
Our cognitive capacity for sustained attention has undeniably declined with the rise of digital media. That much is difficult to dispute. But focusing only on this diagnosis overlooks a more fundamental question: what is the purpose of reading today?
For centuries, we read because knowledge was primarily transmitted through books. Reading was the gateway to science, philosophy, and discovery. Today, we live in a world of constant acceleration, where knowledge evolves rapidly and contradictions emerge faster than any printed page can keep up.
Perhaps the problem is not only that readers have changed. Perhaps writing itself has failed to reinvent its form.
Rather than opposing nostalgia or those who express it, it may be more fruitful to recognize what it reveals: a tension between a linear form of writing and a non-linear reality. The issue is not simply loss, but mismatch.
This is precisely where a different conception of writing becomes necessary. Non-linear writing does not aim to guide the reader along a single intellectual path. Instead, it activates the reader’s own cognitive agency.
Digital media, through hyperlinks and modular structures, opens a possibility that paper could not fully realize: a reading experience based on exploration rather than sequence. The reader is no longer confined to the author’s narrative progression, but is invited to navigate, connect, and reconfigure ideas according to their own intellectual movement.
In such a framework, reading becomes less about receiving a finished discourse and more about constructing a personal architecture of thought. Each link, each detour, each return becomes part of an active cognitive process.
This is not a degradation of reading, but potentially its transformation: from linear absorption to dynamic exploration.
And perhaps this is the real challenge ahead—not to preserve the past, but to invent forms of writing capable of engaging minds that no longer think in straight lines.
I’ve posted this quote here before, but it fits the question/topic so well I cant resist sayin’again:
“The syntactical nature of reality is that the world is made of words, and if you know which words, then you can make of it what you wish” (T.Mckenna)
In my experience, those who could orate the best, richest vocab, clearest grammar, most inevitable subject/content flow,, they always seemed to make the most life headway. So developing ones language generator muscle (by reading) would have to be money in the bank. Imagine freestyle rap in iambic pentameter, until,, suddenly, one was surrounded by people who can only relate to hyper distilled memes or hieroglyphics.
Most of us dont do much with words. What content transfers may not be as important as what we do with or about what’s been said.
One aspect of language flow runs on the rails of reason. But there are other communiques that are rather intending to provoke or evoke a sentiment (AKA “mind kontrol”), what one “feels” about what’s been said. its an electro-magnetic charge that does have plenty to say. suddenly we’re in a charged arena where words alone come up short; last time I checked, English words for naming feelings can be boiled down to 4 possibilities. There are more than 4 feeling names but they pretty much can be consolidated down to anger, fear, sadness, and happiness.
(this insight comes from a brief study of NVC non-violent communication: many of the words we use when we say “you make me feel,,,” actually arent the feeling but rather an action or state.)
Maybe someone who’s good at splainin’ in English could set me straight on this?
I will share a little anecdote about the relationship between reading and fighting, although perhaps from a different perspective:
Wishing to read an employment contract before signing it earned me a physical assault by the supervisor who handed it to me – because he wanted my signature on the document without knowing what it really said, which I refused – and since he couldn’t with me, I was accused of the assault and lost the job.
So indeed, the written word is central to defending people’s rights.
When you move to a new country and have to learn the language, they typically recommend you to watch movies and TV. But reading books is I believe a much better learning technique. I learnt two foreign languages and reading – novels first, then essays – really helped me in the process. Very often authors use the same vocabulary and have a specific style that is theirs, which is very helpful for your understanding as well as your own speaking in your later oral conversations. When you read in a foreign language, you can take your time to understand what is being said, it’s fun because it’s like a game in which you have to decipher a code – the very story you’re going through – and soon you won’t even need your dictionary so much because the context will give you enough clues as to what those new words you come across actually mean. I bet you’ll pick up how to conjugate most verbs correctly and formulate your sentences in the proper syntax by the end of your first couple of novels! (I hope I said all that good…)
Thank you James.
well crafted and beautifully stated.
I find it harder and harder to find authors I would like to read.
I believe the endless click bait has also effected Imagination.
I appreciate your florid passages.
thanks for the years of centering.
The Capture of Academia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exxYNh9N1P4
Book about: How universities shape power, silence dissent and influence society.
Prof Norman Fenton interviewed by Dr John Campbell
“If the rule you followed brought you to this…of what use was the rule?” ~ “No Country For Old Men”, Cormac McCarthy, 2005
When the Corbett personality finally perceives how its own moralizing is a deeper expression of a desire to control others it didn’t choose itself, they will begin a chain of self-questioning that will lead it to the root problem: there is no higher truth than lies. Who decides what is better?
Gdlance
“….Who decides what is better?….”
God does, that’s the axiom without which meaning has no where to stand
If you think the passion for reading is being eroded bit by bit (pun intended), wait until you know what they are doing with a large number of printed rare books:
AI Companies Are Buying Tons of Old Books Because They’re Free of AI Slop
https://archive.is/9MQrK
BUMP
BUMP
“AI Companies Are Buying Tons of Old Books Because They’re Free of AI Slop”
BUMP
EXCERPT
…Internal Anthropic documents about its plan to scan millions of books, revealed in the copyright lawsuit, don’t make clear why the company wanted to destroy the books in the process.
A deposition of Tom Harvey, who Anthropic hired to lead the project and who previously helped create Google Books, shows that one company Anthropic contracted to scan the books was Datamation, which offers both “high volume destructive and non-destructive book scanning” services. In a destructive book scanning process, the spine of the book is cut so the pages can be fed into a scanning machine, which is faster and cheaper than non-destructive book scanning.
Regardless of its original intentions, the federal judge in the copyright lawsuit from authors against Anthropic, William Alsup, found that Anthropic’s creation of digital copies of the books was legal specifically because the books were destroyed….
~~WWW datamationis.com/services/conversion-services/book-scanning/?ref=404media.co
Colosseum, Thanks for snagging that important article from behind the 404media.co paywall!!
I despise Glenn Beck, but I watched this July 31, 2026 video segment (which might have been built off the 404 article):
What Anthropic Is Doing To Millions Of Rare Books MUST Be Stopped
14:12
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SvKhj-jHbA
I thought of James Corbett‘s superb 3 part series The Media Matrix in the latter half of the Glenn Beck video.
Glenn Beck tells the story of William Tyndale who in the early 1500’s had translated/printed Bibles into English even though it was illegal to do so. The Archbishop of Canterbury (England) began a campaign of buying up these contraband copies of the New Testament in order to burn them.
There are ebooks.