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The USSR was indeed the most reading country in the world. Soviet citizens spent approx. 11 hours a week reading books, newspapers and journals on average, whic
by lovegrenoble 2y ago
The USSR was indeed the most reading country in the world.
Soviet citizens spent approx. 11 hours a week reading books, newspapers and journals on average, which was twice more as the British, North Americans and French people did. It was the findings of the world study of 1966.
- bdjsiqoocwk 2y agoNot a good metric for producing scientific talent, and it doesn't distinguish reading fiction from actually educating yourself. For the purposes of producing scientific talent, reading fiction helps you as much as watching TV.
- philosopher1234 2y agoI don’t know any definition of actually educating yourself that would exclude reading fiction. And why are you focused on the purpose of producing scientific talent?
- shepherdjerred 2y agoThe article is trying to explain why the Soviets were so good at keeping up with the US in science/math
- bdjsiqoocwk 2y agoRight... tell me you didn't read the article, am I right. That's why I didn't bother replying. I often feel the impulse to reply to "show everyone that this guy is talking nonsense" but if that's obvious other people will see it too, so I say nothing.
- 12345hn6789 2y agoThis is an incredibly pessimistic view. Do you have any sources to these claims?
- 082349872349872 2y agoI bet a lot of scientific talent was inspired (on either side* of the Iron Curtain) by the genre of fiction this dude is reading: https://barykin-pin-up.ru/#/i/kniga-luchshaya-podruga https://barykin-pin-up.ru/#/i/kniga-luchshaya-podruga * Lem (Cyberiad, etc.) was all I could get of theirs, on mine.
- myth_drannon 2y agoYes, people had a lot of time for hobbies. Reading, writing poems, electronics. Sometimes I watch old interviews of people on the streets and compare with the interviews they do on the streets now. It's night and day. Even people, like working class, drunk in a bar in the end of 80's collapse were more well spoken and intelligent then the people now. Either it's Putin, emigration or capitalism or whatever but there is a serious degradation in the populace.
- komali2 2y agoI've noticed this aspect in general of revolutionary societies. What I'm personally quite selfishly interested in is whether this is unique to leftist revolutionary societies - were Germans or Italians in 1936 having spirited debates about fascism and how best to serve the Fatherland? I have no idea, from what I've read so far it sounds like no. Meanwhile, for example in Spain in the same time period, there was a remarkably broad activation of the population in revolutionary activism and political engagement, which allegedly doubled productivity and dramatically increased agricultural yields, which to me indicates that the anarchists were basically everywhere (how else did they syndicalize such wide swaths of the economy?). Similarly there's the whole French Revolution cafe / salon culture.
- 082349872349872 2y agoFascism was explicitly and proudly anti-intellectual, eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achille_Starace#:~:text=On%20one%20occasion,a%20proverbial%20catchphrase https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achille_Starace#:~:text=On%20o...
- tightbookkeeper 2y agoI think you’re missing a lot of historical context. If by “intellectual” you mean cosmopolitan university professors and government administrators then yes. This also closely associated with internalization, relativism, and Jewish culture. If by “intellectual” you mean learning, reading, thinking, then no.