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Very insightful, and much less alienating than most articles I've read of a similar nature. Come to think of it, this was very well written - it had a nice flo

Very insightful, and much less alienating than most articles I've read of a similar nature. Come to think of it, this was very well written - it had a nice flow to it, building up to some profound observation, and then starting over with some different viewpoint. My only complaint is over those weird "repeat myself in giant text surrounded by quotation marks" things scattered throughout the article, but that seems to have become an acceptable/recommended practice?... (Really, when did this become a thing? I'm really curious on the history of it, but I don't know which term to search for). I will say that I used to read only nonfiction texts because I enjoy learning about history and the sciences, and these subjects seemed more important than what can be found in fictional stories. But then I began reading more stories, especially slice-of-life type things, and I realized that I was wrong. Reading these stories lends me insight into my own social life - how to be a better friend, etc - and really makes me contemplate which values I want to live by and how I can uphold those in my day to day life. I liken this to the distinction between classroom schooling and life learning. There's a decent-sized class of subjects that are more effectively taught through experience and self-discovery than via instruction. Interestingly, this class of subjects seems to be the most foundational, as they tend to lend insights into things like what makes an individual feel fulfilled, whereas the subjects taught in school are usually more along the lines of tools (that could potentially be applied to the former). But what use is it to learn a tool if you have no sense of what to apply it to? Engagement increases when a student is seeking knowledge of their own accord, usually to satisfy some goal, curiosity or creative drive - none of which are likely to be conceived within a classroom. Certainly some balance is needed.

Normal_gaussian 10y ago
It is called a pull quote, and they have been a thing for longer than the internet (from experience). A quick search hasn't yet turned up anything interesting. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pull_quote https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pull_quote
- wallacoloo 10y ago
  Hmmm. It makes sense for magazines, where people tend to flip the pages until something catches their eye. But in online content like this, it seems that once somebody's on your webpage and past the fold, a pull quote might not have a significant impact on whether they read the article or not. And for skimming/previewing, I suspect section headings are comparatively effective. Of course, I have no data to back that up. For me, they just create stress when I'm reading. I see one of these pull quotes coming and I think "I should just skip this - I know they'll repeat themselves further down, or that this quote will be a repeat of something said earlier, so I should save myself the time and skip it." But then when I try to do that, the thought becomes, "but what if this quote is unique and not just some text copy-pasted from elsewhere? I need to read it, otherwise I might not understand the rest of this section." And of course, I see these pull quotes edging up from the bottom of the screen a few sentences in advance, and so all this thought distracts me and I invariably have to reread the surrounding text because of that. Hopefully this is something particular to me and pull quotes don't cause others this kind of irrational stress. In any case, thanks for answering my question.
  - cmrx64 10y ago
    I do the same thing with pull quotes in any medium, not just the internet. I don't like them.
    - DasIch 10y ago
      It makes sense when you don't read everything, when you're reading a newspaper or a magazine for example and only read the articles that catch your attention. I really don't see how it makes sense in the context of a single article though. If I'm already clearly reading an article, a pull quote is only going to distract me.
- adrusi 10y ago
  The reason that's pushed for it in the context of articles on the web is that it breaks up the wall of text, and supposedly people are less likely to stop reading in the middle of an article if there isn't a wall of text. It's a substitute for images for lazy authors.
ogig 10y ago
>Come to think of it, this was very well written - it had a nice flow to it, building up to some profound observation, and then starting over with some different viewpoint. Also my thoughts. I checked her about page and learned Carol Black is the creator of The Wonder Years with her husband.
trgn 10y ago
I thought it was well written too. One thing though, and that always throws me off is that, while schooling in industrial society is flawed (in those seven generations she alludes too), writers like her immediately idealize the bucolic alternative of hunter gatherer societies, as if there has not been a vast chasm separating the two, either measured in thousands of years (say in Eurasia), or measured by thousands of miles (say, when Thoreau sailed across the Atlantic). I would expect the children of the prosperous peasants in Breughel's paintings probably got beaten more than our children do now, although they grew up careless and free. Or the children of the proud guilds members in Rembrandts paintings, should we pity them because they were learning their family's trade at a young age? Or the gypsy girls of Renoir, was their childhood not more richer and adventurous then that of those stuffy Parisiens? The other thing, and it is unclear if this is related to the way children grow up, but tribal societies are generally violent. Raids, rape and murder, constant warring, torture, let's call it terror, is the bedrock of martial societies. How can this not be curbed by stunting these violent impulses from early childhood? To conclude somewhat pithily. The ship has sailed, our children will never grow up the way we did in some primeval state, not even remotely, mostly because that world is alien to us. Whatever revolution she's alluding too in the end, I cannot imagine it. At most, essays like that are a veiled advertisement of home-schooling, although I do believe the author did set her sights much higher than that.

Normal_gaussian 10y ago

It is called a pull quote, and they have been a thing for longer than the internet (from experience). A quick search hasn't yet turned up anything interesting. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pull_quote https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pull_quote

wallacoloo 10y ago
Hmmm. It makes sense for magazines, where people tend to flip the pages until something catches their eye. But in online content like this, it seems that once somebody's on your webpage and past the fold, a pull quote might not have a significant impact on whether they read the article or not. And for skimming/previewing, I suspect section headings are comparatively effective. Of course, I have no data to back that up. For me, they just create stress when I'm reading. I see one of these pull quotes coming and I think "I should just skip this - I know they'll repeat themselves further down, or that this quote will be a repeat of something said earlier, so I should save myself the time and skip it." But then when I try to do that, the thought becomes, "but what if this quote is unique and not just some text copy-pasted from elsewhere? I need to read it, otherwise I might not understand the rest of this section." And of course, I see these pull quotes edging up from the bottom of the screen a few sentences in advance, and so all this thought distracts me and I invariably have to reread the surrounding text because of that. Hopefully this is something particular to me and pull quotes don't cause others this kind of irrational stress. In any case, thanks for answering my question.
- cmrx64 10y ago
  I do the same thing with pull quotes in any medium, not just the internet. I don't like them.
  - DasIch 10y ago
    It makes sense when you don't read everything, when you're reading a newspaper or a magazine for example and only read the articles that catch your attention. I really don't see how it makes sense in the context of a single article though. If I'm already clearly reading an article, a pull quote is only going to distract me.
adrusi 10y ago
The reason that's pushed for it in the context of articles on the web is that it breaks up the wall of text, and supposedly people are less likely to stop reading in the middle of an article if there isn't a wall of text. It's a substitute for images for lazy authors.

ogig 10y ago

>Come to think of it, this was very well written - it had a nice flow to it, building up to some profound observation, and then starting over with some different viewpoint. Also my thoughts. I checked her about page and learned Carol Black is the creator of The Wonder Years with her husband.

trgn 10y ago

I thought it was well written too. One thing though, and that always throws me off is that, while schooling in industrial society is flawed (in those seven generations she alludes too), writers like her immediately idealize the bucolic alternative of hunter gatherer societies, as if there has not been a vast chasm separating the two, either measured in thousands of years (say in Eurasia), or measured by thousands of miles (say, when Thoreau sailed across the Atlantic). I would expect the children of the prosperous peasants in Breughel's paintings probably got beaten more than our children do now, although they grew up careless and free. Or the children of the proud guilds members in Rembrandts paintings, should we pity them because they were learning their family's trade at a young age? Or the gypsy girls of Renoir, was their childhood not more richer and adventurous then that of those stuffy Parisiens? The other thing, and it is unclear if this is related to the way children grow up, but tribal societies are generally violent. Raids, rape and murder, constant warring, torture, let's call it terror, is the bedrock of martial societies. How can this not be curbed by stunting these violent impulses from early childhood? To conclude somewhat pithily. The ship has sailed, our children will never grow up the way we did in some primeval state, not even remotely, mostly because that world is alien to us. Whatever revolution she's alluding too in the end, I cannot imagine it. At most, essays like that are a veiled advertisement of home-schooling, although I do believe the author did set her sights much higher than that.