When I read things like America's Death March Toward Illiteracy I am almost overcome by a desire to run and turn on my TV for a few hours.
The author had me ripping from her first two sentences. "People who read books are different from other people. They're smarter for one thing." Really? Well, some of them certainly like to think they are. It doesn't necessarily make it so.
A few paragraphs later she goes on with "Soon, who knows? Maybe we'll be burning books in the town square chanting: We don't need no dadgum books. We got Innernet porn 'n' satellite TeeVee!" Keep in mind, this was another save-the-book-section essay. People who write these things just can't seem to make an argument without attacking somebody who has little or nothing to do with the subject at hand.
To suggest that people who don't read are rubes who watch porn is so freaking offensive I am almost speechless. (But only almost.) Do the people who write these kinds of things ever think for a minute that maybe their intellectual snottery is exactly what turns people off from the world of books?
Thanks to the Blog of the Bookslut for this one. Jessa summed up my feelings. "Oh good god."
I truly, madly, deeply hate the "if the things are different one must be better" approach (you touched on it at Colleen's blog in the comments.)
ReplyDeleteI just cannot bring myself to click thru and read the whole thing.
I am indignant at the snobbery. Some of us like books AND porn.
ReplyDelete(where's the joke font in Blogger?)
When you've got a joke that good, you don't need a special font. I laughed out loud.
ReplyDelete