And a necessary part of that is the printed word. Postman thought the 18th century was the zenith of rational argument, and a highly sophisticated argument is based on words, not images or videos.
I work in education, and the big challenge to what you suggest is that the text of books is becoming simpler, and pictures and videos are incre…
And a necessary part of that is the printed word. Postman thought the 18th century was the zenith of rational argument, and a highly sophisticated argument is based on words, not images or videos.
I work in education, and the big challenge to what you suggest is that the text of books is becoming simpler, and pictures and videos are increasingly the media in which information is conveyed. To return to the word, printed or digital, already has something counter-cultural to it. And it will continue to do so.
And that’s one of the reasons I’m thankful for Substack: it’s a place where we can write and read words. No small thing.
I recently retired from higher ed and as a librarian (!) ran into this a lot. Academic writing is a tough row, especially for undergraduates. Sometimes reminding them that it *is* hard to read and that they needed to give themselves time and space to absorb what they were reading helped. Sometimes.
And a necessary part of that is the printed word. Postman thought the 18th century was the zenith of rational argument, and a highly sophisticated argument is based on words, not images or videos.
I work in education, and the big challenge to what you suggest is that the text of books is becoming simpler, and pictures and videos are increasingly the media in which information is conveyed. To return to the word, printed or digital, already has something counter-cultural to it. And it will continue to do so.
And that’s one of the reasons I’m thankful for Substack: it’s a place where we can write and read words. No small thing.
I recently retired from higher ed and as a librarian (!) ran into this a lot. Academic writing is a tough row, especially for undergraduates. Sometimes reminding them that it *is* hard to read and that they needed to give themselves time and space to absorb what they were reading helped. Sometimes.