Smarty McSmarty Pants

I cannot begin this post without first explaining it's title. It was not what I originally planned to dub it when the germ of the idea infected me. I have just finished watching a five person panel at the American Enterprise Institute discuss the book, "State of the American Mind", of which two members are editors. It's about the decline of Americans reading books and an anti-intellectual spirit abroad in the land. This panel is easily one of the most picture perfect representations of poster children for academic snobbery and cause for turning people off to intellectual pursuit that I have seen in a long time. Their analysis and own narcissism is it's own catalyst for anti-intellectualism. If you wish to view it in it's entirety you can find it at C-Span's website but your time might be better spent watching cute kitten videos on YouTube.

I love books and am surrounded by them even as I write this electronic missive. You can't force a person, of any age, to want to read and pursue knowledge. Children are naturally inquisitive at an early age but without encouragement they quickly lose the thirst. Encouragement is not curriculum or do as I say not as I do. It is organic and requires individual assessment.

A critical moment in my intellectual life came in the first grade with a teacher, Mrs. Smith, who believed in the individual not the curriculum. She quickly assessed her students reading abilities and accelerated them accordingly, dividing into separate reading groups. Three of us rapidly moved to eighth grade material. My reading comprehension would  serve me well throughout my life. Thank you Mrs. Smith you were rare. Fortunately the school corporation was small enough not to care about what she was doing in the first grade. Unfortunately I'm too old to have lived in school corporations that had any real accelerated programs.

My other good fortune was to have parents who encouraged my love of books. My father read a lot and my paternal grandmother read everyday of her life. In fact she read the complete works of William Shakespeare when she was 12. Any book she could lay her hands on she read. All the books the literati say you should read she read and not because they said so but because she wanted to. Sometimes she had to reread things because nothing else was available. By middle age she had to move to mostly novels, some good, some not so good. She would get large paper sacks full of paperbacks, consume them rapidly, then trade them in for another round. In retirement after a lifetime of crappie jobs she would start reading at 5:30A.M. and not stop until 7 or 8 at night often reading a book a day. Ironically had her life gone the way she really hoped, I might never have lived. She was a smart woman in an era that didn't care for that. She wanted to be a writer. As a teenager she wrote romance stories that her grandfather would take to his weekly gathering of friends at the general store and read them aloud. Apparently they were pretty good. She wanted to go away to a special school that had a writing program and her grandfather said he would send her. He died and it never happened. What happened to her stories I never knew, that subject evoked profound sadness in her. On Shakespeare she said it was tough reading but satisfying. On Hemingway she said he was a good writer but a bit overrated!

So is it in my blood? Absolutely not, it's just who I am. I loved going to used bookstores, sadly there aren't many of those left. One that I particularly enjoyed just off of downtown Indianapolis in what, as a teen,was deemed a rough area. It was a little brick building in need of maintenance that it never received. Every inch from floor to ceiling was books and there was a basement. The whole place smelled of musk and old paper, it was heaven. For me nothing will ever replace the thrill of holding a book and getting lost in the turn of the page. I have nothing against the Kindle and the Nook but they're not for me. The P.C. has it's vital research function, but read an entire book on it? Perish the thought.

Twenty years ago I would be reading multiple books  at a time, all non-fiction. But not anymore, my concentration levels have waned. Now I generally have two books in process, one non-fiction and one fiction. In fiction I prefer science fiction, fantasy or speculative. Standard novels of the ilk produced by James Patterson don't interest me. That's not snobbery, just my personal truth.

People may very well be reading less or differently, that's evolution. Things change and intellectual pursuit is fraught with challenges. You should pursue it for the person in your mirror, not for panelists at think tanks. No one can make you want to know more, the desire comes from an unknown place deep within.

I like to read and to have in depth conversations including the taboos of politics and religion. Reading is not nearly as endangered as good conversation. Try talking religion and see what happens.

The literacy rate is higher than at any point in documented history. Remember, before Mr. Gutenberg gave us the greatest invention of all time, only a small elite portion of the population could read from painstakingly handwritten books. The masses couldn't afford books and couldn't have read them anyway. Even after Gutenberg the general population was not encouraged to learn to read. Reading often leads to revolution, kings and Emporers aren't fond of that, Popes either.