|
Cognitive_Shift
CS actual




Registered: 12/11/07
Posts: 29,591
|
|
The reality is you have to be a bit of a nerd to read books regularly in our culture
-------------------- L'enfer est plein de bonnes volontés et désirs
|
DisoRDeR
motional



Registered: 08/29/02
Posts: 1,158
Loc: nonsensistan
|
|
Sure, I didn't mean to suggest that there are simple causal chains to trace back here, or that technology is to blame for anything. I'm a bit checked out of what most people are up to, and my expression of non-alarm corresponds to a general detachment à la George Carlin quote above. I just felt the need to follow up on the stats presented.
I'm not so well informed on the decline of western culture as you, but I find it interesting that the same technological integration that is sometimes blamed for cultural decay also forms a feedback loop which disseminates alarming information from few to many and enables impassioned democratic response. What empire of history had such dexterity? This response may only amount to ineffectual affectation in the current power structure, but it leaves me wondering how we might rebuild from the rubble should current trends prove irreversible.
|
DividedQuantum
Outer Head


Registered: 12/06/13
Posts: 9,819
|
Re: the sociology of reading [Re: DisoRDeR]
#22146105 - 08/26/15 12:14 PM (8 years, 5 months ago) |
|
|
Good points.
-------------------- Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici
|
Jokeshopbeard
Humble Student

Registered: 11/30/11
Posts: 26,088
Loc: Deep in the system
|
|
Quote:
Cognitive_Shift said: The reality is you have to be a bit of a nerd to read books regularly in our culture
Only if you're concerned about being judged by our wonderful culture, and the majority of people that comprise it.
-------------------- Let it be seen that you are nothing. And in knowing that you are nothing... there is nothing to lose, there is nothing to gain. What can happen to you? Something can happen to the body, but it will either heal or it won't. What's the big deal? Let life knock you to bits. Let life take you apart. Let life destroy you. It will only destroy what you are not. --Jac O'keeffe
|
Kurt
Thinker, blinker, writer, typer.

Registered: 11/26/14
Posts: 1,688
|
|
How about work in your field during the day, read in a spare moment, and meet up with the same people you work with at night?
I am not saying it's the only basis, but books are bodies in the world, in our culture. There is that basis.
Maybe it depends on the area. For instance, I knew a lot of stoic and intellectual farmers, with friendly connections in academics, in upper central California (there is a lot of commune type "permacultural" stuff too, that's something else and not what I mean though).
There is the traditional "spectator" types, associated with reading, the inert passivity that is always vesting more in the reality of removal, waiting ones turn to become "part" of what one sees in books. The kind that is nourished, by the abstraction of word. There is such a reality, in the world. It has been called "simulacrum" and it is naturally associated with the luminous screen.
I think when I see books in hand, especially a philosophy book, more and more often I see the body in the world, the signs of the hidden stoic, the true pragmatist, the intellectuals who do not live primarily in their intellect but in the world.
A quote that may be relevant to any discussion of "caste". Nietzsche wasn't too much in to the "nerd" stereotype... or the acquiescence which becomes reality:
Quote:
While the noble man lives in trust and openness with himself (gennaios 'of noble descent' underlines the nuance 'upright' and probably also 'naïve'), the man of ressentiment is neither upright nor naive nor honest and straightforward with himself. His soul squints; his spirit loves hiding places, secret paths and back doors, everything covert entices him as his world, his security, his refreshment; he understands how to keep silent, how not to forget, how to wait, how to be provisionally self-deprecating and humble.
A race of such men of ressentiment is bound to become eventually cleverer than any noble race; it will also honor cleverness to a far greater degree: namely, as a condition of existence of the first importance; while with noble men cleverness can easily acquire a subtle flavor of luxury and subtlety—for here it is far less essential than the perfect functioning of the regulating unconscious instincts or even than a certain imprudence, perhaps a bold recklessness whether in the face of danger or of the enemy, or that enthusiastic impulsiveness in anger, love, reverence, gratitude, and revenge by which noble souls have at all times recognized one another.
Ressentiment itself, if it should appear in the noble man, consummates and exhausts itself in an immediate reaction, and therefore does not poison: on the other hand, it fails to appear at all on countless occasions on which it inevitably appears in the weak and impotent.
|
MarkostheGnostic
Elder



Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 14,279
Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 3 years, 2 days
|
|
Quote:
Cognitive_Shift said: The reality is you have to be a bit of a nerd to read books regularly in our culture
I don't see it that way at all. Thomas Jefferson, who had multiple books arranged on a 'lazy Susan,' is considered a great genius, not a nerd. Why? Because he read excessively during a time when there was no electronic communications? He had a tremendous curiosity. So did many other geniuses from the 17th-20th centuries. John Quincy Adams, son of the the 2nd President of the United States, and himself, the 6th President, had an unprecedented (pun intended) IQ. HE is never referred to as a nerd. Isaac Newton is never referred to as a nerd, or Ben Franklin. Nerd is a term of mockery that stereotypes intellectuals as being unbalanced people, oblivious to fashion and having poor social skills, perhaps insinuating someone as being on the spectrum of Autism-Asperger's disorders. I am not abnormal any more than that guy who alone refused to raise his arm in a Nazi salute in that pic circulating on the net. He too was in the minority, he didn't belong with the sheeple who bought the big lies. I wonder if he survived the Third Reich.
We live in the Decline and Fall of the United States of America as a one-time place of opportunity for all manner of individuals. Post-Baby-Boomer generations CAN work a 40 hour week but choose to work longer hours because they're addicted to technology and social status. Having outweighs being, and doing outweighs thinking BIG thoughts. Kids don't know what philosophy is and many adults can't even name a philosopher. Maybe Plato's name will come up, but certainly nothing will be known about him. However, ask those same people about the goddamned Kardashians or some equally dumb-ass footballer, and they can tell you the latest gossip.
People race around in cars and on foot like they have important things to do, but they're completely deluded most of the time, deceived by the rules of the game and dazzled by the game's rewards, AS IF personal immortality will be achieved at the result of their frenetic pace. In reality, their inner lives are devoid of Presence, and their relationships keep failing. They are no more than cogs in a collective machine and little better than the Communist worker of the last century who was told that an inner life apart from the Party was subversive. Reading was discouraged, as was thinking. Pol Pot the Cambodian dictator had people executed just for wearing glasses, since it suggested that they were intellectuals and could read! People in the U.S. calculate their net worth and may be calculating people, but very few WANT to think or even know what thinking is. Adolescents used to tell me they hated to think! Reading is food for thought. No reading, inferior thinking.
|
Jokeshopbeard
Humble Student

Registered: 11/30/11
Posts: 26,088
Loc: Deep in the system
|
|
Once again Markos, a bloody masterpiece of a reply. I take my hat off to you sir!
-------------------- Let it be seen that you are nothing. And in knowing that you are nothing... there is nothing to lose, there is nothing to gain. What can happen to you? Something can happen to the body, but it will either heal or it won't. What's the big deal? Let life knock you to bits. Let life take you apart. Let life destroy you. It will only destroy what you are not. --Jac O'keeffe
|
MarkostheGnostic
Elder



Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 14,279
Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 3 years, 2 days
|
|
Thanks JSB.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
|
falcon



Registered: 04/01/02
Posts: 8,005
Last seen: 1 day, 4 minutes
|
|
Newton may have been a booknerd, the other intellectuals you mentioned were politically savvy and cut awide swath in the social world they were in, disqualifying them from nerdom by any measure. I'm wondering why you included three obviously not nerd contempoaries as examples of people who were not called nerd but should have been or would be today. Along with these three you throw in the protonerd from an earlier era. Was it that the weight of Newton's nerdness is enough to make the example believeable?
|
Kurt
Thinker, blinker, writer, typer.

Registered: 11/26/14
Posts: 1,688
|
Re: the sociology of reading [Re: falcon]
#22149347 - 08/26/15 10:40 PM (8 years, 5 months ago) |
|
|
I was going to say the same thing. The guy was abstinent his whole life after all...
|
MarkostheGnostic
Elder



Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 14,279
Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 3 years, 2 days
|
Re: the sociology of reading [Re: falcon]
#22149400 - 08/26/15 10:57 PM (8 years, 5 months ago) |
|
|
Just people I've been reading about or thinking about. Particularly Newton. I recently read a couple of books about him in connection to his #1 identity, which was not mathematician, but chemist. Newton probably died a virgin, so you're right about "the weight of Newton's nerdness." Jefferson had his way with enough of his slaves to have sired untold numbers of 'Jeffersons' even down to the present day. Franklin apparently wasn't a 'looker' but his debauchery in The Hellfire Club might have significantly absolved his nerdy characteristics. Bill Gates is the paradigmatic nerd in present times. He's the wealthiest man on the planet and he almost single-handedly created a paradigm shift in our evolution. I don't hear anyone calling him a nerd, or his contemporary, the late great Steve Jobs. I suppose Stephen Hawking is off-limits owing to his tragic ALS condition, but no doubt he would also be considered an epitome of nerdiness, while conversely, Neil Degrasse Tyson is considered to be a popular and 'cool' intellectual, but no doubt there are those who called him a nerd in his youth,
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
|
CosmicJoke
happy mutant



Registered: 04/05/00
Posts: 10,848
Loc: Portland, OR
|
|
Quote:
Jokeshopbeard said: I couldn't disagree more. I see nothing about texting that will stimulate the mind in the way dedicating yourself to a book will. Have you been to major city recently and see the zombies glued to their phones? Shit, a 20 year old guy got killed by a truck outside my office recently after he walked into the road without looking - staring at his phone no less. Or couples, sitting across the table from each other, staring at their phones, not talking.
I'm surprised you think they're comparable.
the dining dead
Reading Kesey's second novel atm, Sometimes A Great Notion.... Do recommend, though anything to do with Oregon is of my interest... Learning this state's history has been something of a challenge, sometimes I feel like I don't have any idea where the fuck I live.
I don't read spiritual fluff anymore, I've done enough of it and enough drugs and have figured out my heart and peace of mind.
-------------------- Everything is better than it was the last time. I'm good. If we could look into each others hearts, and understand the unique challenges each of us faces, I think we would treat each other much more gently, with more love, patience, tolerance, and care. It takes a lot of courage to go out there and radiate your essence. I know you scared, you should ask us if we scared too. If you was there, and we just knew you cared too.
|
|