A Reader’s Lament

February 15, 1993

Here I go again with a cultural complaint! One of my fears for the future is that an ill-informed public will be brainwashed, or should I say, eyewashed, by the by the God of the Tube (TV, that is). As I cut off TV nearly two years ago, I concede that I cannot claim to to be currently sufficiently aware to make objective judgments. Nevertheless, I believe that TV is still the “wasteland” that Newton Minow described many years ago.

This “musing” was sparked by observations made Cambridge historian, J. H. Plumb, in his book, IN THE LIGHT OF HISTORY, published in 1973. He wrote of the momentum for knowledge that happened in late 17th century England. Dictionaries and encyclopedias were compiled and published. Lectures on science became popular and well-attended, less by the “Upper Class” and more by tradesmen, working-class people and business entrepreneurs. The period was one of growth for libraries and book clubs. Serious works largely out-numbered fiction.

Plumb pointed out that this surge of interest in popular learning worried the “high” Anglican Church because “popular education led to questioning accepted accepted beliefs in religion and politics. What began as scientific curiosity often ended in political and moral speculation.” The ruling elite were “horrified that miners were reading Thomas Paine. ...toward the end of the century there was an obvious connection between dissenters, liberals, and libraries.”

I resonated to the historian when he observed that in Birmingham, of the 19-member committee that ran the library, 18 were dissenters led by Joseph Priestley. The persons who organized the London Library had a strong liberal bias, were supporters of the American Revolution, and “sympathetic to the early aspirations of the French Revolution.”

Obviously, I am not non-partisan about libraries and books. Long before I was a teen-ager, several times a week I walked the mile or so to the Parlin Library. I devoured Sir Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson, TOM SAWYER, James Fenimore Cooper, Zane Grey’s gunslingers, Tom Swift’s marvelous inventions and the feats of Frank and Dick Merriwell. But also, I tried to understand H. G. Wells, Jack London, Tennyson’s IDYLLS OF THE KING, Dickens, even Gibbon (with little success, then). This strong appetite for books continues. My taste has been incremental for biography, history, and poetry. I’m always delighted to happen on an author whose works I had not known but now appreciate. This month it has been the poetry of May Swenson. Shakespeare is THE BEST. I try to read. all his plays every year. (Although it’s easy to skip TITUS ANDRONICUS and HENRY VIII.) Another “Buff” of the Bard urged me to pay more attention to the Sonnets; and I am trying to do that, too. Then too, I am a fan of well-written mystery stories – Agatha Christie, P. D. James, Ngaio Marsh, William Klienzle, many others. I like puzzles – maybe that’s why I majored in religion.

But even if you are not a bibliophile, think twice about over-dosing on TV. Schoolteachers tell me that 6th and 7th graders read little, if at all. There are some of that age who have NEVER read a book. But they may spend 15-20 hours a week glued to the TV fare of “sit-coms,” “re-runs,” sports, cartoons, “cop” shows, whatever. But from all I read in reviews and hear in conversations, there are few programs that have much relation to the real world in which we must all live.

Not only are our young beguiled, but countless adults get the “news” only from the TV. TV networks are owned by corporate conglomerates; and about 1/3 of the “News” time is used for “a word from our sponsors” or “now this” - advertising time. One cannot get the full story from TV news. There is bias: and left-of-center attitudes and proposals never get much hearing, even on Public Television. The voices of the highly-paid “anchors” and pundits may sound like what they are saying is the “gospel”, but believe me, it is not. One needs to read journals of differing conservative and liberal views, newspapers (there aren’t many) which comprehensively cover a story, or other sources which more fully describe facts and offer opinions and differentiate between those two.

I have more leisure than most people, so I don’t expect there are many who have my reading habits. (I’ve had a long life-time to develop that pursuit.) But can you zap the clicker, turn off the tube once in a while and read a book, take a walk, make a friend? If I had the opportunity to make a deal with a teen-ager, it might be, “for every four hours of television, read a book.” I’m bold enough to suggest that such is not a bad deal for persons of any age.

Of course, to repeat J. H. Plumb’s suggestion, there are still connections between dissenters, liberals, and libraries. But most of you know me well enough to realize that OF COURSE I’d welcome many more dissenters and liberals. Whatever the field of knowledge or organization, the interactions between conservatives, liberals, and, yes, radicals, are the sources of worthy changes.

If you have read this far, you will understand why I respond heartily to the fantasy written by Virginia Woolf:

“I have sometimes dreamt that when the Day of Judgment dawns and the great conquerors and lawyers and statesmen come to receive their awards – their crowns, their laurels, their names carved indelibly upon imperishable marble – the Almighty will turn to Peter and will say, not without a certain envy when He sees us coming with our books under our arms, ‘Look, these need no reward. We have nothing to give them here. They have loved reading.’”