Reading is important. More people should be supported to read. In the past few years, I've silently witnessed a number of smart people claim that encouraging reading is "elitist." I've quietly fumed and then I launched a micro-press.
The inability to read is crippling in today's society. Ironically, encouraging people to not read is elitist because it stratifies society into those who can read and those who can.
Speaking as a kid who spent his first 5yrs in a trailer, hasn’t graduated anything since kindergarten, and now writes/edits professionally…
MotherFUCK anyone who says encouraging reading is elitist. I will personally launch them (and the personal branding they rode in on) into the sun.
His grandfather was an authoritarian technocrat loon. Mine was in the Klan.
Were it not for the fact that, rather than taking this as a reference point for committing one’s life differently, he has his paw-paw’s nuts flush against his chin… you might be onto something.
Also, I’m a shit coder.
I agree, adding that cultures communicate using multiple sign systems, not only textual. You can use ALL the signs to participate, explore ideas, & stand your cultural ground.
That said, spoken/written sign systems (languages) being so complex, I can't help but think that it's the thing that needs more encouraging because so few people can afford it (time, effort, attention, access, or $-wise).
See also everything ever written by Vyvyan Evans on language and cognition.
I have a feeling I'm gonna get flamed for this, but I honestly get it speaking from experience. If reading is introduced to kids as something "smart" people do and when they grow older they're surrounded by egotistical people bragging about how much they read, then yeah it can feel super elitist.
I just can't see how *anyone* can believe this. I mean, do they consider themselves "Elites?" I know there's no rational reasoning here, but i can't help but wonder. Also, bravo for your response!
In the 1930s everyone strove for literacy. It was the sign of a free person!! “Smart” people encouraging illiteracy do it so they can take advantage of naive people…
There's a difference, I guess, between reading as a functional skill (literacy) and Reading as something that some middle class people do in fact tend to brag about and make a competition in a way that can make others feel less-than.
