Reading

“…whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.” -Philippians 4:8

Liz Brabson, a Tennessee middle school teacher, recently lamented the decline of the literary aspect of our modern American culture in an editorial in the News-Sentinel (1-12-08). Quoting a study by the National Endowment for the Arts, she mourned the fact that less than one-third of American 13-year-olds are daily readers. While this is admittedly sad, I suspect that the daily reading habits of adults in this country sag even below that. The decline of the printed word is well documented as we watch the number of daily newspapers steadily shrink with some questioning their future existence all together. While some are simply switching to on-line sources of news and stimulation, ours is becoming an increasingly oral and visual culture. Attention spans have shrunk drastically (watch an old movie and try not get impatient with the pace) and our vocabularies have withered to Reader’s Digest standards (6th grade?).

As an indicator of where we are today compared to over 100 years ago, try picking up and giving “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” a quick read. Here was a penny novelette, written by Robert Louis Stevenson in 1886, designed and destined for the pop-fiction rack at the local train station and newsstand. It quickly was selling out edition after edition at a shilling a copy in the everyday marketplace. I daresay most of us with college educations would struggle with Stevenson’s wide-ranging language (‘amities’-‘distained’- ‘troglodytic’) let alone be patient enough to follow his in-depth ponderings of human nature that comes close to the book of Romans in profundity. No publisher would touch it in today’s action-saturated and word-challenged culture.

For those of you who have read the letters of even the simple and uneducated persons of the 1800’s, one can scarce escape notice of the grace and eloquence that so often typifies their language. There was a simple beauty there which echoed the stylish long-hand script with which they wrote. Contrast that to the newly evolving language of text messaging and its butchered spelling, and one can easily work up a case of despair and despondency.

Yet Ms. Brabson’s complaint also lashed out against Christians who would keep books such as the newly controversial “The Golden Compass” from their children’s hands. She claimed that it would be irresponsible for anyone to discourage reading of any kind (‘within reason,’ she adds, but whose?). How easily does reading become an end in itself which is demonstrated again and again by the garish and provocative offerings of our school and public libraries. Our literary elite have come to justify most any fare if it will “get them to read.” Following this mantra, we find horror novels and the occult promoted in our public school libraries along with such uplifting periodicals such as Rolling Stone, GQ, and Cosmopolitan dealing every sex secret known to man into the hands of curious teens.

We forget so easily that our forefathers came to this land and quickly started schools and colleges teaching their children to read for one over-arching, Protestant obsession: that each person would be able to read the Bible for themselves and direct their lives accordingly. There lies the rub of cultural slippage. It is so easy to divorce good Christian values from their Christian base, and then the mischief begins. C.S. Lewis writes repeatedly of motherly compassion as a very damaging force when taken to extreme and not constrained by other equally important truths and values. Communism is essentially a Christian heresy where concern for the poor and downtrodden morphed into the most bloody and destructive movement of the 20th century.

The object and end view which Ms. Brabson and others so easily overlook is that reading is a skill that enables us to more efficiently and easily search for wisdom. Reading is a means to an end and not an end in itself. The Bible says it quite simply, “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom.” Yes, searching and questioning are good tools in the toolbox which periodically involves examining even opposing points of view. Yet, we are the adults. If we have any sense at all as to what constitutes true wisdom, any notion whatsoever of truth as distinguished from error, of good being distanced from evil, we would be most foolish and most horribly negligent not to pass that skill along as well as the skills of reading and questioning. We are the keepers of our children’s souls and minds. From us they will get their first inclinations as to what is the true and the beautiful.

“The Golden Compass” is a no-brainer. While I will not forbid it, I choose to believe its author’s open intent and declare it not worth the reading. There are too many other good books out there that it would be a foolish waste of time to purposely steer my children down that detour. And that is what the Catholic League and other groups are simply doing: alerting us to the dead-end destination of Philip Pullman. Wisdom is essentially a matter of discernment. I want my children to be discerning, discriminating consumers in the welter of the public square: a place where the coarse, the false, and the evil are offered up in quantities far surpassing the good, the true, and the beautiful. Discernment is an ability to be taught and demonstrated by parents first of all, followed by librarians, teachers, schools, and all the gate-keepers of society. It is a shame that so many have abandoned their posts or stand so compromised by moral ambiguity and intellectual relativism that they can no longer tell the difference between the sheep and the wolves. Or they are silenced by a paralyzing fear of disrupting our cultural ease with a simple cry of alarm.

All said and done, if I have to use the Sport’s Illustrated swimsuit edition in order to interest my son, or yours, in reading, something is already dreadfully wrong. I have my limits, and surely Ms. Brabson has hers as well. She would be well served by being less churlish with those who draw the line further back than she.