Is the decline of reading poisoning our politics?

He contends that abstract reasoning is “integral to liberal-democratic politics.” After all, “the concept of a depersonalized constitutional order” and “the virtues of doubt, dissent, and humility” are “very abstract ideas.” As deep literacy declines, the public possesses less reverence for — or even, comprehension of — such rational abstractions. Nevertheless, the concept of “digital orality” does spotlight a truth that’s easy to overlook: Many of our society’s foundational institutions were formulated in a highly unusual era of human history — the short window between the advent of literacy and development of electronic media. For example, to support the claim that literacy promotes a commitment to objective truth, he argues that literate athletes tend to accept unfavorable — but accurate — rulings by referees, while illiterate players often get into altercations “with the referee after the decision has been made as if the application of the rules is a matter of persuasion or, even more strangely (for the literate mind), a matter of post-factum persuasion.”

Author: Eric Levitz

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