5 ms·

> What made the fiction literary was it spoke the language of memory, where the reader inhabited the experience of the characters, and this changed how readers

> What made the fiction literary was it spoke the language of memory, where the reader inhabited the experience of the characters, and this changed how readers experienced the world after. > > — https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36882341 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36882341 People don't turn to books for this sort of experience anymore. People are not "literary minded". For the average person, interpolating another person's experience against their own through the written word is counterintuitive if not impossible and detached. It takes a literary mind to feel through text. Electronic media of all sorts, aside from long form text displayed electronically is just that; electrifying. I think that the quote I pulled from motohagiography applies to all writing and when we go further: > Writing on the internet is participatory, impersonal, performative, and anti-intimate. The cultural decline of all writing becomes more obvious. Anyone who cares about this sort of stuff needs to understand that their brain is rewired but their spirit still craves the same old stuff that it sought out for when the mind could stomach total absorption in a dry block of pulp.

citizenpaul 1y ago
> it spoke the language of memory, We are living in the tower of Babel. No one speaks the same "language" anymore. I truly believe this was the true metaphor behind that story. Once a civilization reaches a certain level of standard wealth people hyper converge on their personal beliefs to the point where they can literally no longer speak about other forms of personal belief or preference that conflicts with their own. And they no longer are coerced into going along with another belief system (compromise) due to economic need from the majority. At that point the civilization unravels due to lack of coherent direction. Look at all the arguments about definitions of clearly defined words in modern politics.
- tolerance 1y ago
  Even so, mass media today is better posed to present a shared language. I'd go as far as to think that there is a shared language in society today, but it's more like athletes jawing off amongst each other than something like what we expect the effects of culture and art to be.
  - citizenpaul 1y ago
    Tech doesn't change human nature. We are still the same as 100,000 years ago without tech.
    - tolerance 1y ago
      In my original comment, I said that I believe that our brains are rewired but our spirits still crave the same things as before. Tech changes the actions and reasonings behind how our nature is exercised, at the material level. Now, if you don't believe in the material/immaterial dichotomy that typifies man then what I'm saying may not register. I'm not sure if this applies to you, but either way I'm curious what made you make the claim that took us in this direction because it's apparent that you've noticed a logical step that I was only aware of subconsciously. Thanks.
    - chairmansteve 1y ago
      Tech changes human culture. The changes are at a population, statistical level. Asimovs Foundation book described it well.
    - hoseja 1y ago
      Except for the thousands of years of civilizational-directed breeding in parts of the globe.
  - ljsprague 1y ago
    You can share a language and still talk past each other.
- rsynnott 1y ago
  > And they no longer are coerced into going along with another belief system (compromise) due to economic need from the majority. At that point the civilization unravels due to lack of coherent direction. I mean... you think this is _new_? See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_wars_of_religion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_wars_of_religion Civilisation, you will not, survived a few hundred years of _that_. I'm not sure that the sort of ultra-conformist society that you seem to be thinking of ever really existed.
  - citizenpaul 1y ago
    I'm not idealizing. I'm saying its a cycle so powerful and embedded in our nature that people wrote parables about it that have persisted for thousands of years yet we keep doing it and not learning our collective lesson.
mcnamaratw 1y ago
Then why is Kurt Vonnegut still so popular?
- tolerance 1y ago
  He isn't, and I won't be convinced that he is until Supreme puts his face on one of their shirts.
- LeonB 1y ago
  He’s not that popular, but Billy Pilgrim keeps wandering back and forth in time, buying up all the Vonnegut books, juicing the figures. What Billy really wants is a good Kilgore Trout book, but the supply of those seems to be dead. So it goes.
voidhorse 1y ago
I vaguely recall some sociology and media theory strands that make arguments similar to the quoted post—that we are entering or have already entered an era of post-literacy. Our new language is a language of images, (tiktok, instagram), immediacy, and literalness (does anyone even understand allegory anymore? Does the average piece of media ever express a metaphor?). I don't have numbers on it, but my teacher friends tell me that the typical student's reading comprehension skills have tanked in the past few years.
- tolerance 1y ago
  Check these out: https://patch.com/connecticut/across-ct/hartford-grad-sues-school-district-claims-she-can-t-read-or-write https://patch.com/connecticut/across-ct/hartford-grad-sues-s... https://kittenbeloved.substack.com/p/mass-literacy-isnt https://kittenbeloved.substack.com/p/mass-literacy-isnt
- TheOtherHobbes 1y ago
  It's not just reading comprehension, it's the imagination that goes with it. Text is active. It triggers the imagination. Visual imagery - especially electronic imagery - is consumed passively. What you see is what you get. Especially with Gen Z, there's been a catastrophic collapse in the public's ability to imagine anything that hasn't been pre-digested by Hollywood movies, video games, D&D, and anime. It's the same stock imagery over and over and over. Older culture is "boring" because it doesn't follow the standard tropes, and that makes it incomprehensible. It's a bizarre kind of deja nostalgia - the only futures that can be imagined are the ones that have been imagined already.
  - perching_aix 1y ago
    > Older culture is "boring" because it doesn't follow the standard tropes, and that makes it incomprehensible. The older culture, where the tropes stem from, doesn't follow the tropes? What?
    - tolerance 1y ago

citizenpaul 1y ago

> it spoke the language of memory, We are living in the tower of Babel. No one speaks the same "language" anymore. I truly believe this was the true metaphor behind that story. Once a civilization reaches a certain level of standard wealth people hyper converge on their personal beliefs to the point where they can literally no longer speak about other forms of personal belief or preference that conflicts with their own. And they no longer are coerced into going along with another belief system (compromise) due to economic need from the majority. At that point the civilization unravels due to lack of coherent direction. Look at all the arguments about definitions of clearly defined words in modern politics.

tolerance 1y ago
Even so, mass media today is better posed to present a shared language. I'd go as far as to think that there is a shared language in society today, but it's more like athletes jawing off amongst each other than something like what we expect the effects of culture and art to be.
- citizenpaul 1y ago
  Tech doesn't change human nature. We are still the same as 100,000 years ago without tech.
  - tolerance 1y ago
    In my original comment, I said that I believe that our brains are rewired but our spirits still crave the same things as before. Tech changes the actions and reasonings behind how our nature is exercised, at the material level. Now, if you don't believe in the material/immaterial dichotomy that typifies man then what I'm saying may not register. I'm not sure if this applies to you, but either way I'm curious what made you make the claim that took us in this direction because it's apparent that you've noticed a logical step that I was only aware of subconsciously. Thanks.
  - chairmansteve 1y ago
    Tech changes human culture. The changes are at a population, statistical level. Asimovs Foundation book described it well.
  - hoseja 1y ago
    Except for the thousands of years of civilizational-directed breeding in parts of the globe.
- ljsprague 1y ago
  You can share a language and still talk past each other.
rsynnott 1y ago
> And they no longer are coerced into going along with another belief system (compromise) due to economic need from the majority. At that point the civilization unravels due to lack of coherent direction. I mean... you think this is _new_? See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_wars_of_religion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_wars_of_religion Civilisation, you will not, survived a few hundred years of _that_. I'm not sure that the sort of ultra-conformist society that you seem to be thinking of ever really existed.
- citizenpaul 1y ago
  I'm not idealizing. I'm saying its a cycle so powerful and embedded in our nature that people wrote parables about it that have persisted for thousands of years yet we keep doing it and not learning our collective lesson.

mcnamaratw 1y ago

Then why is Kurt Vonnegut still so popular?

tolerance 1y ago
He isn't, and I won't be convinced that he is until Supreme puts his face on one of their shirts.
LeonB 1y ago
He’s not that popular, but Billy Pilgrim keeps wandering back and forth in time, buying up all the Vonnegut books, juicing the figures. What Billy really wants is a good Kilgore Trout book, but the supply of those seems to be dead. So it goes.

voidhorse 1y ago

I vaguely recall some sociology and media theory strands that make arguments similar to the quoted post—that we are entering or have already entered an era of post-literacy. Our new language is a language of images, (tiktok, instagram), immediacy, and literalness (does anyone even understand allegory anymore? Does the average piece of media ever express a metaphor?). I don't have numbers on it, but my teacher friends tell me that the typical student's reading comprehension skills have tanked in the past few years.

tolerance 1y ago
Check these out: https://patch.com/connecticut/across-ct/hartford-grad-sues-school-district-claims-she-can-t-read-or-write https://patch.com/connecticut/across-ct/hartford-grad-sues-s... https://kittenbeloved.substack.com/p/mass-literacy-isnt https://kittenbeloved.substack.com/p/mass-literacy-isnt
TheOtherHobbes 1y ago
It's not just reading comprehension, it's the imagination that goes with it. Text is active. It triggers the imagination. Visual imagery - especially electronic imagery - is consumed passively. What you see is what you get. Especially with Gen Z, there's been a catastrophic collapse in the public's ability to imagine anything that hasn't been pre-digested by Hollywood movies, video games, D&D, and anime. It's the same stock imagery over and over and over. Older culture is "boring" because it doesn't follow the standard tropes, and that makes it incomprehensible. It's a bizarre kind of deja nostalgia - the only futures that can be imagined are the ones that have been imagined already.
- perching_aix 1y ago
  > Older culture is "boring" because it doesn't follow the standard tropes, and that makes it incomprehensible. The older culture, where the tropes stem from, doesn't follow the tropes? What?
  - tolerance 1y ago