New Illiteracy
Some years ago, I had an exchange with a telemarketer that I still remember fondly. She was selling subscriptions to the Washington Post, and seemed surprised that I wasn't terribly interested. In fact, I'd never developed a habit of reading newspapers, and I didn't see a reason to start.
So, I explained to her: "I don't read newspapers." Sudden and total silence resulted. After a few moments, I realized that what she heard was "I don't read", and she was so embarrassed by the idea of trying to sell a newspaper subscription to someone who didn't know how to read that she was speechless. That was truly a moment when silence was golden.
As time went on, I tended to listen less and less to news on the radio*, and watch less and less of it on TV. In fact, I hear almost none on the radio anymore, and never see it on TV since Isaac and I virtually never watch TV these days.
Twenty years ago earnest people tried to convince me that it was some sort of civic duty to read a newspaper and listen to news. I could see that being an informed citizen (informed enough, say, not to make the mistake of electing someone like the current president) was important, but I didn't see then and I don't see now why that meant I had to read newspapers and listen to network news.#
My theory was that if something really important happened, I'd hear about it without really trying: if we were, say, suddenly under nuclear attack from the USSR, someone would run down the hall yelling it quite loudly. It's turned out true. When the events of September 11 began to unfold, I heard every detail without even trying. I used to play a game based on my utter indifference to football and see how long I could go after Super-Bowl Sunday without hearing which team won; with great efforts at avoidance, I might last a week.
Then I started blogging, which means that I started reading blogs. Naturally, I began by reading ones that were on the blogrolls of others that I read. As I go along, I find new blogs mentioned by someone, I find it worth reading and I add it to my list, sometimes dropping one elsewhere. As time passed, I felt that I was moving outward in an ever-widening spiral away from the Big Blogs, the ones that everyone seemed to have on their blogrolls. As was the case with network news, as I dropped the Big Blogs from my reading list I didn't miss anything important that might turn up through their auspices: it always diffused out to my own reading boundaries anyway. I hardly needed to read the Big Blogs when so many others would link to anything that might be actually worthy of attention.
I also had found pretty quickly that the Big Blogs were rather irritating to me, too. Generally speaking, they took themselves far too seriously, consequently treating other blogs as rather beneath their notice. In some ways, I didn't feel enough like sucking up to them to feel worthy — I've never aspired to move in rarified circles where I could refer to celebrities by their first names and have everyone know to whom I referred, not that I would ever accuse David or Kevin of that.
Besides, I'm one of those people who a priori tends to dislike anything popular, since I don't really believe that anything that so many people adore so devotedly can be any use at all. I'm an elitest, thankfully. And, as I spiral outward to the "lesser blogs", my blog reading is much, much more fun and informative.
Therefore, it should come as no surprise whatsoever that I agree completely with Shakespeare's Sister when she wrote:
On a side note, I’d just like to say I run this blog day in and day out without visiting any blogs that I’ve found repeatedly offensive, no matter how important they are alleged to be. There’s simply not a blog important enough to oblige my patronage if I’m compelled to hold my nose while I read it.
(The only reason I mention that is because I’ve too often read other bloggers note, as if with a sigh of resignation, how certain blogs “have to” be read. No they don’t; no blog is indispensable—yeah, including and probably especially this one….)
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*It may have had something to do with the scales falling from my eyes — or ears, if you prefer — after All Things Considered did a send-up of all-news-headline radio with updates every 15 minutes: Henry Kissinger is flying to France today to talk to…; Henry Kissinger is leaving Washington at this hour to fly to France…; Henry Kissinger is en route to the airport, on his way to France…; Henry Kissing is arriving at the airport….
#In fact, I think I'm the one who reaps the most benefit since I know people like Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and their ilk only second- or third-hand, which is more than close enough evidently. I also live a calmer life from not listening to them, and feel more virtuous still for not giving them yet another ear to violate.
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To thwart spam, comments by new people are held for moderation; give me a bit of time and your comment will show up.
I welcome comments -- even dissent -- but I will delete without notice irrelevant, rude, psychotic, or incomprehensible comments, particularly those that I deem homophobic, unless they are amusing. The same goes for commercial comments and trackbacks. Sorry, but it's my blog and my decisions are final.
on Tuesday, 30 August 2005 at 09.19
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Thanks, J! Now if everyone else could just quit the junk like we can. ;-)