This is not just the case in the humanities. Its also very true for hard sciences. We just rush through hundreds of concepts without truely udnerstanding the concept or the the thought process that led to that concept. It deprives students of the ability to develop the cognitive processes that make a great scientist. I think that is due to the key goal of education which is only to get to the next stage.
I agree, while I expect higher education not to have the problem I'm about to describe, a lot of my primary education in the sciences were memorizing facts instead of understanding the process-the rigor, humility, creativity and teamwork required to get science to progress! I can only imagine how much it gets in the way of more interdisciplinary research or lateral-thinking application if the ones funding the research only want a very, very specific thing invented or only want support for a biased conclusion that actual boots-on-the-ground research will find to be untrue.
this. They're constantly cutting down the years spent on a degree and compressing subjects upon subjects in as little semesters as possible without giving the students the capacity to truly integrate the concepts and techniques that are being studied
this is killing me right now oh my god. maybe it's something wrong with me but i really can't just keep memorizing concepts after concepts when there is not time nor resources to actually UNDERSTAND all those things! all those concepts heavily depend on history of said concepts (like time they were created, other concepts and theories that were a base for newer concepts) and they also usually have a lot of nuances that could help to actually understand the idea that we are supposed to study, but none of that is ever covered or mentioned and there is never time for it because time is pretty limited. i'm not sure if it's just me problem or a legit thing, but that's what i feel.
@@kashyappatel3458 it definitely not as extreme. People often complain there are “too many topics” in the sciences but there really aren’t, the issue is that the classes aren’t removing content because it builds and is necessary. Meanwhile the humanities can, and do, water down their content because it doesn’t build in the same way.
@@tudu-c3y Not being rude but this is probably a function of your personality or the level of classes you’re taking in the sciences. In an intro level survey class you can’t expect to understand everything, but you need to develop an intuition-the more nuance comes in later classes. For example, in genchem or Ochem you can introduce orbitals and the SWE, but you can’t give someone a rigorous understanding of it at that level. To do that they’d need more mathematical maturity, so it’s introduced in a pchem class after the student has taken rudimentary ODEs/linear algebra. Like, how can you understand what the Hamiltonian operator *really* is without first knowing what an eigenfunction is or what an inner product is? You can’t. Meanwhile, in the humanities, they can (and do) just remove content to appeal to consumers.
I'm a 60 year old teacher and I find my own ability to stick with a paper book has diminished in the wake of my internet addiction. I listen to audiobooks during my commute every day and have completed many long books that way, but I have to work at reading books on paper, however much I actually enjoy the experience when I make myself do it. I can't imagine how a teenager who's been reading excerpts in their classes and who constantly watches TikTok instead of long-form video essays like I do is going to be able to sit down and read Moby Dick.
You're not alone. I've been reading Moby Dick for two years. Did a grad program in philosophy and law school years ago. Keep trying, is all I can come up with.
You need a good place to fall in love with reading for example like a 1930 house that someone could let you stay at and you discover that they have an incredible library.. it's that type of situation that most people they don't get to experience you havecto be lucky too
@@edgartokman4898 I do have a wonderful personal library, as does my mom. Perhaps you're right about getting away for a bit, without the internet, and just spending some time with books.
I can sustain reading while flying. Also on holiday I will find a reading place. Reading aloud some Dickens with my adult son has worked during the summer too. More time consuming than silent reading but it stops me skipping and/ or bailing!
I just wanted to highlight the fact that Robin is is one of the few RUclipsrs uploading his videos almost uncut and talking for 20 min straight and in a really engaging way, congrats to this skill!
I think many students aren’t taught to love reading because they are so focused on passing a test. They are afraid to get things wrong out of the fear of being punished. I feel students need to have a voice. They need to be able to express their point of view when analyzing a text, not necessarily the teacher’s point of view. This would require a complete overhaul of the education system. I think literature is important because you won’t understand the world around you without it. I’m finding that many young people don’t understand literary references in television and film because they aren’t familiar with the texts that are being referred to, making them unable to fully understand what they’re watching. I also think there is inherent value in understanding the beauty and complexity of language. Language can be just as beautiful as music, and it is in such music that the human condition can be revealed.
I am a film professor, and year over year most of them have trouble sitting through a whole film, too. Films are like books were when I was their age-this really high effort thing. Original thinking is definitely affected. I fee for them because we are all at war with the algorithm for our attention, and it’s a tough fight.
As an engineer, about as far from the humanities as one can get, my perspective is that great literature teaches us how to live and in turn makes life worth living.
I second that as an engineer myself. Going through studies the focus was only ever on technical learning. Now I feel like I should have gone to the library more whilst I studied after having put more time into reading in recent years and from gaining so much insight and communicative abilities from it
Thank you. I’m a literature PhD and my engineer brother (who hates reading except audiobooks!) agrees. There’s no reason why we can’t appreciate each other’s disciplines.
@@anastasis-cm5hw You can appreciate another discipline while mourning the rigor that no longer exists in it. Undergraduate level humanities and social studies classes have become ridiculously watered down in a way that hasn’t happened in the hard sciences/engineering. Source: An applied sciences PhD with a liberal arts *and* engineering undergrad.
@@jacob7270 they’ve become watered down because we’re constantly having to cater to STEMlords that question our existence. I have this conversation with my colleagues constantly. We would love to put students through the paces but we’re hamstrung. It’s not us, it’s the administration, and the administration is catering to STEMlords.
I’m currently a Masters student at tasked with reading 1-2 250 page books every week and my problem as that we don’t have time to engage deeply with the text. It’s all about speed reading in order to have a meaningful contribution to the class discussion. But then when you do the recommended reading you realize that you don’t even need to read the text, you just need to read the theories and papers. Which makes reading the text feel pointless because you aren’t reading for enjoyment or even for understanding.
I read about 100 pages an hour if it's literature. For technical books, I'm slower. I read and re-read over 100 books a year. But then again I pick books that I enjoy. If I don't, after a few chapters, I'll skip over or just stop reading. Books aren't all the same. Some are quite dreadful. It's okay not to read them. I prefer books that are over 50 years old unless they are mystery/detective stories. I figure that if a book is still around after that long, it's a good one.
My last two semesters in college,I read around 250 pages of literature a day. After I graduated, I didn't read a single page of literature for about four years.
US culture is obsessed with analytics and outcomes. We no longer learn for the sake of learning, we perform tasks to test well or achieve a specific goal. I feel this started to gain traction at the turn of the millennium when the country was concerned with how we compared to Asia in the sciences. Art and the humanities has been cast aside in favor of standardized tests and measurable student outcomes.
Humanities are useless and pretentious garbage. They could be taught in such a way that they aren't. But that doesn't happen. You're just encouraging people to waste money on useless degrees.
It's not culture and it's not just the US, it's neo liberalism (or capitalism more roughly) like the person above me said. Economics drive policies like this and the peoples material conditions drive their behaviour, which people confuse for culture. I don't think culture is something as simple as how people behave, especially when it's only a reaction to the environment and people across the world regardles of their culture react the same way. It's almost like saying running is your culture, because you have a beast chasing you, but that's actually just a normal human reaction unrelated to culture. Things/people are this way because of economic policies, which directly affect our lives and environment, not culture. Culture isn't just any behaviour people engage in.
Not attention span alone, it is focus. Sustainable focus. That starts with books as we are young, then we read hard books. No wonder elite students cannot read, when they do not read. Reading develops focus, focus helps develop fluency...
I agree that we need to engage deeply, and that means teaching kids to love to learn. In Nicolas Carr's the shallows he outlines this truth. Our memories require deep engagement to record long-term...
Respectfully, it doesn't help that every institution in America and the West broadly is undergoing a legitimacy crisis, and that large disasters the adults in the room were supposed to prevent are multiplying. For gods sakes, we've asked American students to just accept the possibility of their being gunned down as normal, and then completely failed them when public health dictated a lockdown.
@@alohm No. The degree how much you can focus depends on 2 things. Either is something interesting to you, or you can deal with lots of boredom, what means you will be able to read something you are not so interested, what means less engagement
I think its modern life that does this.. not anything else.. theres always something in the back of the mind because of the pace of this life.. I cant read a book without thinking Im wasting time.. or i start reading and then I remember I sent a text to someone and dont have a reply.. or i remember a job app that didnt get back to me.. or an email I need to send.. the pace and hyperproductivity of modern life always has something running in the back of the mind and so it feels like a waste of time doing anything that takes a long time.. I think its really that simple.. I cant even watch a movie without feeling like Im wasting my life..
Modernity comes with a lot of benefits (science, technology, medicine, etc.), but there are still a lot of problems we need to address as a society. If you haven’t already, I recommend reading The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, by Max Weber. It touches upon a lot of what you’re describing.
Sounded like we all have rewired our brain plasticity to adapt with the crazy of the modern info flood. Now it's weird to go back to a slower pace as slice of life.
@@kzpm9796 It really can be. As much as I love to dig through old texts, it can be hard to sit still and focus. Perhaps ADHD is the natural result of a society that conditions us into constantly seeking stimulation.
The Venn diagram between how people feel when they've drunk the capitalist realism kool-aid and how people feel when they have depression and anxiety has a lot of overlap.
@@SpocksCat Even after studying for so long, it still feels almost surreal that people used to work only to fulfil their needs, even if their employers offered more pay for extra labor. I'm actually rereading a lot of Weber's work right now, and it's pretty eye-opening. I recommend it to anyone with an interest in the loss of meaning, and the rise of grindset culture.
What I find pretty weird is that parents just don't appreciate reading as much as they used to. When I was younger, I hated reading. In fact, I hadn't read a single fiction story besides my textbooks until 9th grade, and then suddenly, I became such a reader. But now that I have found an interest in reading (not just fiction, but philosophy, non-fiction, articles and even research papers) I'm suddenly being reprimanded for reading, as it is a "waste of time"? Suddenly I'm 19, and knowledge, peace or my interests don't matter because what use is knowledge if it doesn't pay bills, doesn't help you get a career and your highschool teachers call literature a dead end (in their defense, they teach STEM subjects so). I want to read books, in fact, I'm so so eager to read so many books, but suddenly I've grown up and reading isn't cool anymore. I'm in second year of college and people laugh at me when I take my degree seriously. In fact, not a single student in my class loves literature when we're all majoring in literature. Maybe I'm just in a bad place, but I only feel discouraged every time I beat my scrolling addiction to read a novel, or learn something new and then a literature major laughs at me and says they've just read the summary and got better grades than me.
Don't ever give up. You do this for you, not for the others or for the grades. Let them be delusional, let them stay on surface when you go deep and feel more. Take pride in that without telling them. Celebrate it and this sincerety will beat the damn sarcasm in the long run. I wish you all the best. Can relate a lot with my humanitarian degree
As someone who got an MFA in creative writing so that I could one day teach it all sorts of levels I love your love for reading if students who read the summaries are getting better grades than you then that shows how little your professors are actually trying to make them think about the assigned reading where is you are already leagues ahead of them and that desire coupled with your drive is going to help you through so much more of life than what sounds like being negative for the sake of the status quo
You're doing things right. Take care of yourself and don't stoop to normie level. Of course sometimes you might need to cheat by reading an exerpt just because there's no time left but ultimately you can always go back to reading that book later.
Wow, that is so sad that they say that. Just know that reading literature and actually taking it in will make you a better thinker, it'll make you a better person and it will make you more disciplined. I think reading literature will also give you soft skill that these other people in your major don't have and probably won't ever have with an attitude like that. Everyone is too motivated about getting a better job which ultimately is all about money. Yes, you need to earn money to live, but you don't have to be rich to live a good life.
the value of stories: 1- we learn from stories when we read about the changes characters go through or the complex decisions they have to make. exposure to hundreds or thousands of quality stories gives us wisdom and psychological insight. 2- reading good books is pleasurable like eating good food is pleasurable. you could survive by drinking meal replacement shakes everyday, but it's pretty amazing to enjoy a good meal with close friends and meaningful conversation.
The one argument my boyfriend and I have over is over reading and the value of it - it really is the one thing we truly disagree on. He just doesnt see the value in it - to him it is just too much effort for too little reward and I dont know how to change his mind or explain to him that the experiences of reading, and of slowing down, are so important to us as human beings. Reading forces you to slow down and consider stuff which is so important when daily life is so rushed and instant. Reading is a chance to empathise with different experiences of life from yours in a world were people are increasingly disconnected and individualistic. Sharing stories and art are at the centre of humanity. In the words of Mr Keating, science, law and engineering allow society to live and function. Poetry and love and art give us a reason to function.
I don't read to slow down. I read to immerse myself in another world. I become the main protagonist, whether male, female, child, or any race and social background. I am all of them. This is the secret of reading.😊
The thing you described about being closely engaged with Ulysses over a long period of time is exactly what the appeal of fandoms is. The only difference is that when the text is actually good the experience is more profound
It's funny. I'm a mathematician and I recently arrived to a similar conclusion on why young people are not interested in learning math. We force them to spend too much time doing unnecessary calculations, which creates friction and doesn't help understand why everyone should learn it in the first place.
But if anything, the "unnecessary calculations" have become quicker and less arduous to perform; log tables, endless long divisions, etc, have been replaced by the humble calculator (I'm speaking specifically in the context of higher education). Not saying you're wrong; but this cannot be the explanation for a *reduction* in interest in learning maths over the years if the burden of tedious calculation has actually trended down. Perhaps you believe that there has instead been a net increase in such calculations? I think that's very unlikely. Insofar as young people are being put off by maths due to the sheer tedium of calculation, their forebears had it worse 🤷♂️
@DanielTanios that's a good point. First, I don't have data on this, but I wouldn't say there has been a decrease in interest in math. My impression is that the sources of frustration from learning math in most students have been more or less the same for the last few generations. Probably I didn't make it clear by saying "young people", since it could be understood as "the young people of today". Second, when I say calculations I mostly don't mean things like addition, multiplication or logarithms. I mean things like applying Bashkara formula to solve second degree equations, solving systems of linear equations by hand, computing determinants of matrices... In general, things that require following a simple but long algorithm and many simple calculations, that even with the help of a calculator are tedious and prone to error from humans. Thanks for helping me clarify.
The rise of careerism within academia has been poison to the humanities, and to our society's civic education in general. How can a society justify charging such extreme costs to receive an education (specifically in the US) if it isn't under the guise that the entire purpose of that education is for a higher income?
I had a similar epiphany recently. You spend 3-4 years in college studying a “useful” degree just to run into the same problems as those who study a “useless” degree, which led me to think that if I studied what I actually wanted to study in the first place (which is philosophy) then I would have at least been better off with the skills a philosophy degree teaches than what a finance degree teaches
Personally, literature (and art in general) is all about connecting with other people in a way that isn’t possible in other ways. There’s a wonderful quote from Alan Bennett’s The History Boys: “The best moments in reading are when you come across something - a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things - which you had thought special and particular to you. Now here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out and taken yours.” To me, that’s why generative AI is so offensive: it takes that human connection away. Instead, it bottles up the collective experiences of many and, in the process, dilutes it to become all but meaningless. That’s why I believe the liberal arts are more important than ever and why I continue to pursue them long after finishing university.
My perspective on this is this analogy: Why do you travel then, if you can see pictures and google view of that place and it is easier that way? Why do you travel? - Well to experience the real thing authentically. Well, it is the same with reading literature then.
And that is where we have to stop and note that not everyone wants to really TRAVEL. Even of the people that say they want to travel to different countries, a lot of them are driven by the want to display status in social media.
@@anjalisudarsan7674 I didn't claim it is for everyone. But generally a lot of people today would agree that travel has an inherent value in of itself and that it is enriching. In my observations this group of people that claim that travel is enriching is larger than the group that sees genuine value in reading great volumes of literature and so my analogy is a good way of explaining it to many. Those are my opinions and my observations, maybe you disagree.
“The Stolen Focus” by Johan Hari is an INCREDIBLE book I can’t recommend highly enough - it looks into the why and what for (!) our attention is being diluted, and what to do with it. It’s a problem that ruins experience of being present in life, and ultimately - of being an individual.
I teach intro to composition and rhetoric to undergrads in the United States. I don’t have any grand points to make about literature, but it’s obvious to me that students don’t read anymore. My word is not law, but I do think a lack of reading has led to a lack of deep thoughts and/or critical thinking, though it’s probably been going on for a while. It seems to me that the problems in the wider world are playing a role in the decline of serious reading that ties in nicely with the relaxing of reading standards. It is not a coincidence that studying literature is getting less rigorous right at the same time as colleges are operating more and more like businesses. Education is not content, but it’s being asked to turn into content imo
Great video. I teach English and I find that the biggest barrier is students asking “why does this matter?” It’s one of my favorite conversations to have with them, and your observations here have hit the nail on the head. If students don’t know the purpose of pursuing their own understanding of these texts, then they’ll clock out. Again, great video!
This right here makes the case for Classical Education, which is rightly gaining much ground these days as we realize just how empty, hollow, and even detrimental modern curriculum and pedagogical approaches really are. I’m a teacher in a Classical middle school, where my students read (cover to cover) books like Homer’s Odyssey, Shakespeare, Beowulf, and so on. Yes, 7th graders are reading the full and unabridged Homeric epics. Yes, it can be done. And yes, they love it. Ask me anything.
Robin, I just want to let you know that you have inspired me to go back to study philosophy at university despite already having a business degree. Thank you for what you do.
I personally love literature because stories are powerful. They change the world. As humans we have a tendency to tell stories whether its in the form of a picture or words . Stories reflect human condition and human psyche . Studying literature improves critical thinking skills
Agree with your take that a big problem with education is the assumption that reading is important for its own sake, without making the practical benefits real. Personally, I think that the impact of phones and social media is overstated. I know that's a hot take, but I'm old enough to remember in the '80s when everyone blamed MTV for declining attention spans, heh. But something that doesn't get enough attention is the fact that kids are overscheduled. Yeah, 900 pages may not seem like a lot, but considering that kids are tested constantly, get pages and pages of HW from their other courses, and then are expected to be social creatures (at an age when they're trying to figure life out), it's no surprise that kids don't read.
Reason 1 why longer more intensive Humanities texts are necessary : From the standpoint of History. A quote goes "If we don't learn from the mistakes of the past, we are condemned to repeat them." For example when we read Les Miserables, we learn parts of the history of the French Revolution. The politics of those days leading up to the storming of the Bastille and the Reign of Terror resemble in part the political thinking and events in our modern times. Reason 2: By exercising our muscles of discipline and commitment in reading and studying this long texts we get stronger mentally and academically. This gives us good practice in say for example, problem solving skills where the answer to issues and problems in modern day life are not always obvious. We need Reason 3: Critical Thinking skills. For example, the Critical Thinking skills we learn from disciplining ourselves to make it through The Republic and actually strengthening our minds to think Critically through events and issues in our modern daily lives are invaluable.
Through books we are living another person's life, and that's the key point. We get to know ourselves better with literature when we ask these deep questions: why, how and etc. I believe that without literature and deep questions, we live a life without meaning. The problem with education system is that student just need to do well at tests even without knowing the concept itself, but the literature is not about tests, it's about deep engagement with the text, with the idea of the book.
I also see the importance in convincing students why reading is valuable, though I am not sure that this has ever been the primary motivation for them to engage with great books in the past. I believe it was the demand coming from a place of authority that pushed students to read difficult works. Professors in the humanities felt more confident wielding their authority when the prevailing ideology underscored the importance of their discipline. As the ideological landscape shifted to marginalize the humanities, professors lost confidence in the value of what they teach. Since this ideology permeates students themselves, professors feel they lack the legitimacy to insist on high standards, so they excuse students and settle for their lack of attention span. They are less demanding because of their marginalized position in academia. Notice how many who attempt to justify the value of reading mistakenly regard wisdom and critical thinking as self-evident goods in a world where such wisdom is not celebrated and critical thinking is often punished. They are failing to recognize how those who work in academia are deeply disappointed, looking for enjoyment on the margins, where they cannot simply defend the value of wisdom but instead must question why and how certain types of knowledge are privileged over others. Overall, great thinking, Robin. You're brilliant, as always :)
I like honestly suggest it’s not just focus whilst trying to read (the ability), it’s that they aren’t investing the necessary time to read a large book in the first place. Anecdotally they spending less time studying full stop.
Another aspect of this is simply that nobody has time for anything anymore. We have to go to the gym, work, take care of pets and children, play some videogames, watch some movies, take care of personal finances, solve unexpected problems etc. We don't live simple lives anymore of just going to work for one portion of the day only to return home and read a book for two hours. That's just really rare nowadays. We've got many distractions and many many things to do which is wild. Reading has become secondary for many people instead of a priority.
I say the main cause of all this is the “Instant Reward Mentality of Modern Life”. Nowadays we want everything fast, everything must be efficient, everything must be informative, something to achieve from our actions, some meaning out of everything. People drive fast, Corporations cutting cost, Books turn into summary, Videos turn to short form content……We can’t do anything without getting something out of it anymore. No passion, no joy and thus no personal connections to ourselves and to others. It feels like the dystopian world from Rad Bradbury 451F
The righteous indignation you mentioned drove me into homeschooling about 9 years ago. My oldest is now 17 and a senior. He's currently reading the same Iliad you have in the thumbnail. Keeping him going is challenging, but he does it, slowly. We agreed together to put restrictions on the web based media, but he continues to be distracted, he daydreams, yesterday he invented a new board game. The funny thing to me is that even though he isn't that motivated to lean into reading very hard or with great energy, he still has a sense of pride in having read the things he has. I think that the process of diving into literature little by little, day after day, he comes to understand within himself what the value is.
I graduated from product design, and the most important thing I learnt was to ask myself "why" before designing anything, if the "why" solves a problem, has a purpose, then I should keep going with it, if not the idea isn't worth keeping. The question why is truly powerful.
unfortunately, digital motion is more addictive and exciting than simple physical objects or written texts on paper. Without reading, a person's vocabulary will not only decrease, but also critical thinking and the ability to think more abstractly. Your opinions, ideas, enlightenment begin to disappear.
I see you took my recommendation of Fagles to heart ❣ That being said, the emphasis on convergent ways of thinking has made reading a rather bothersome activity for most students. Consider that even most Ph.Ds are terribly myopic and reductionistic in the ways they think. Then, even worse, we have secondary schools that fail to equip students with any substantive thinking skills...
Your discussion of engaging so heavily with Ulysses actually touches on my issue with my literature degree. My uni forces students to focus on multiple subjects (unusual for my country) and consequently we can't actually spend much time per book. I have actually forced myself to engage less with works because my workload is already overwhelming and I can't afford to devote so much time to one thing. As someone who would read articles and write analysis for fun it's disheartening. All of this is saying nothing about my classmates seeming disinterest in anything we study; I don't really know anyone else who would actually enjoy discussing classical literature despite being on a literal degree for it...
It is definitely a huge challenge for me to articulate to my high school English students why reading literature is so important. I try my best to give my students books they can relate to in some way and guide them through the process of reading, not just to check boxes or meet outcomes, but to understand what they read and FEEL it. Explaining the "why" is a must with each new text we study in my class, be it short story, novel, play, or essay. I don't want them to just do the things, but to actually grow from them.
I'm a physics student who also holds a deep admiration of the humanities, specifically litterature. To me, the issue of focus is, i wanna say common, in the way that i don't think entering university and suddenly struggling to focus and keep at something, is a new thing. Personally i've gotten by while doing very little schoolwork and still getting top grades, because of raw intellect. Going into uni, i knew that my having never had to sit down and study intensively would be a big problem for me, i didn't know how to, and i'm still learning that no, i won't always understand from halfheartedly listening to the lecture, and yes i will have to read the textbook and, more importantly, work at the problems until i understand them, and most of the time, that will take a hell of a lot longer than 5 minutes, but i have to stick with it. What i'm trying to say is that i think anyone who has never had cause to really focus and push through when things get difficult, can run into issues when entering higher education. Whether this applies to a larger subset of students today compared to previously, i can't say. With current affairs being what they are, it wouldn't surprise me though. As for the question of why. I feel much that same as you, Robin, that litterature provides a unique insight into the human condition, but more than that, for me litterature and science are not necessarily as opposite as they're sometimes presented. To me, both science and the humanities are manifestations of the innately human impulse to understand and explore the world we live in. They might be different approaches, but in the end, I wanna be a physicist because i want to always further my understanding of the world, and i read books for the same reason.
i’m a second year english student currently taking a module on Modernism. when it came to joyce, we weren’t assigned the whole book but instead just a short excerpt from it. not a single one of my friends read it regardless, despite it being less than a page long
I blame late-stage capitalism, along with our phones. There is no ADHD epidemic, but a phone one. That and the incessant push both in schools and pop culture to be the best of the best. We're all burned out. I'm going to paraphrase Mark Twain by saying don't let education get in the way of your learning. Learning is interesting; data-driven education (teaching to state standardized tests) makes us jaded.
Okay, to your thesis here, the WHY of literature, and how we fail to teach this. Yes, a hundred times yes! Ultimately, I blame Dewey. What is the value of the humanities? They are the history and future of our thoughts, passions, sufferings. They are soul of our culture, and without them, that soul will whither. I thank you for this video, and I will be assigning it to my students going forward.
I have no background in literature, just a pleasure reader. For people struggling to read novels, my very amateur advice is to get infatuated with the writer *before* you get to their novels - I do this by reading their short stories/poems/essays first, the initial attraction once formed naturally allows for the capacity to "sit with them" for longer periods.
I’m grateful for the Greek educational system,because I got the basics of most fields and don’t really struggle to pick up knowledge. Living in the uk now,my focus and attention span has really shrunk and I feel bad for myself when I know I can do better.
Thank you for this video and your thoughts, Robin. I'm a lecturer for philosophy at university (in Germany) and I find the issue with reading and not really immersing deeply into longer or more complicated pieces is not only there for my students but for myself too. It is a world-wide phenomenon I guess in the humanities and it appears to be a struggle also for lecturers and researchers because of how academia has developed. The pressure of being fast, creating large amounts of outputs (publishing papers in triple blind peer review AA++ journals 😉) and attract fundings and so on is somewhat insane and does not contribute to sharpen the skills needed for intensive closed reading. So again, thank you for provoking a process of thinking about this in a different way than "it's all because of TikTok". 🙂
I graduated as a dual degree scholar- that is to say that I have a bachelor’s in a STEM major and one in a Humanities/Social Sciences major. For me, it was the overall bridging and blending of knowledge in my hybrid education that was infinitely more influential to me than the specifics of information from either major. It was about both breadth and depth of understanding. In my STEM major, there was an importance placed on my humanities/social science skills that allowed for improved communication of “hard science” concepts to a broader audience and making complex or detailed information more accessible. I think the inverse can be true of the influence STEM values and techniques can have on literature and art and so on. They are not mutually exclusive. For example, the Fibonacci sequence has both artistic and mathematical significance, but it comes down to the fact that it has meaning because we say it does. If the humanities and social sciences provide a view of the human condition, technology and the STEM sciences can help us understand how that condition is evolving, not unlike determining the value of Δ (change) for a variable. As an example, maybe by exploring/quantifying the trends of certain vocabulary or literary devices across time can provide us with patterns for understanding how the ways we relate to the world or communicate ideas has changed. And even further, how historical events and technological advancement has influenced this throughout distinct periods of societal development.
Great video. My toughts on it, in my experience, our focus is not diminushed. Attention span is basicly a myth. We stop watching/reading/doing something because of our feelings and how we react to them. What changed is exactly tgat, how we react to boredom. Now escaping boredom is tge main objective of social networks. Its their main service. We escape boredom, they present more ads. But once i get used to boredom again, like being hours on nature, then i can read a lot more and focus more. Im 30 y old, so before the smartphone boom, i could read on a biblio for 2 hours. I could write random stuff for hours. Because wasnt easy to escape boredom
I am happy I subscribed to your channel. When I was through half of your video I was thinking why are you even expecting so much out of something which is at the end of the day reading and just words. I mean merely reading can't bring any sort of inner discipline. But I am glad I saw the whole video because I get to know about your experience about that intensive course.. I might be off in my conclusion but from what I understood, it comes down to two things , firstly understanding the importance of doing something, not just verbally but actually realising from the heart why something is significant for oneself. And second factor is simply love, loving and having passion for what you are doing... I am sure you guys must have loved and enjoyed reading him so much that all the distractions, monotony etc didn't matter and sincerity just flowed.. And these principles can apply to almost all things we do in life, so great video mate!!😊
Thank you for this! I watched Kidology’s video on the same article and I feel like you compliment each other’s points so well. I’m very happy to have discovered your perspective and particularly your “ask why” approach. I come from an Eastern European educational system that rewards individual “greatness” a bit more than (my perception of) the American system, but the underlying problems are the same. Peak performance comes at the cost of enjoyment, fulfilment, deep understanding, deep connection. We as “gifted students” were made to believe the “why” was just academic success, results in competitions, making our parents proud, making our schools proud of us. It was never about preparing to live a life of cultivated curiosity. Thank you, again, for this! I’m picking up Ulysses again :)
The issue is that the bar for humanities education has been lowered so far, while the same has not happened for the sciences. Many people now just get an English degree now to “get a degree.”
Robin, I have been following your videos since the very first one and you have completely outdone yourself in this one 👏🏽👏🏽 very insightful presentation or suggestion of a complex transaction between person and literature! Well done! As a newly qualified teacher, but a liberal artist, I have been noticing this diminishing of connection between young people and literature for a while. I found your thoughts very interesting and extremely viable. In a nutshell, I agree we need to find new ways to cultivate these connections in these changing times and that we need to make sure we are explicit with the 'why'!. Absolutely fundamental.
Maybe it’s because students are often directed towards the symbolism and stylistic forms of literature.. a more external and superficial look at text. I’m not a literature student and haven’t studied it in a while, but that’s a common complaint I hear. For me, literature is like a mirror to my soul. I don’t know any other medium that makes me reflect on the human condition and my own life. It’s the long form that forces you to engage deeply. I wish I could explain better how impactful it is to me. I guess it’s knowing how connected we all are across time and space. It’s truly powerful what literature is capable of.
@@RCWaldun Hi. If you are truly interested in the human condition, I suggest you to read Jiddu Krishnamurti's The First and Last Freedom. Take your time. Don't rush. Summarise every paragraph. And just "watch" with the author.
I'm not a student anymore, but I found this topic so interesting, and I wish I had had an intensive reading class in college. I believe that would have helped me with my comprehension skills and being able to read books like Ulysses or The Recognitions. I find even books with easy to understand plots that don't have a unique style still take me a long time to read if it is more than 600 pages.
A thought provoking video, as always Robin! Here’s my perspective as a college student: I realized something when I caught myself complaining about the reading we have to do in my theatre class, even though it’s not heavy at all, and theatre is something I’m genuinely curious about. While ranting, I literally said “I don’t read” which is not true. I do read, but it feels like I don’t…. It’s just become all about feeding this false sense of productivity by getting through a book, and in turn missing out on the blessing of critical thinking and mental engagement that reading offers. I hope this made sense!!!!
I believe something that is crucially missing these days is the personal relationship between professors and studnets, almost like a mentor and their pupil. Because if they do have a deep connection, they can encourage you to dive into books that might be meaningful for you at the point where you're at. If we look at the book industry; it is not true that people read less - but they don't read as much canonical works anymore, which I can absolutely understand. We tend to find books we personally enjoy or which mean something to us. And that is different for everyone. If we learn to pick better books (and are encouraged to discuss about them) I believe we can get closer to an answer to this question.
I loved your video!! It had me in my head for a really long time thinking about my own admittedly short attention span and how I try to work with it to get things done. It also made me think about why I get so concerned about making a system for my attention span. Personally I’ve never pushed myself towards humanities but in other subjects I’ve wanted to understand things deeply and be able to recall the ideas and feelings it gave me. I think studying humanities is important because the ability to comprehend the feelings and ideas will allow me to see through a new perspective. Anyway, really appreciated this video!
So the college industrial complex that is known to overload students with homework are now complaining that students can't read. What do you all expect. How are they supposed to read when being overload and those who don't have parents pay for thier college have to work which means less time for homework and reading.
Great video. I'm glad someone is talking about this from this perspective instead of just bashing the students. I love literature myself, but this article did have me asking - what is the value of asking students to read books? I never really asked myself why reading was valuable to me. I just know that it is. So you're right, this should be addressed by the academics in this field. I think that for me, reading has allowed me to be more empathetic, understanding, and compassionate towards a wide range of people. Literature gives you a glimpse of how other people live, think, and feel, especially those whose circumstances are so different from yours. It can really change your perspective on so many things. Thanks for making me search for and articulate its value for myself!
Hmm... For me, as I student of master degree in English language and literature, answer is next. I read long books because: 1) I can get pleasure time; 2) I can share experience of reading with others; 3) I can discover something new about myself, other people and the world in general. But I should be honest: I didn't read all texts for literature discipline. It's not due to lack of motivation and absence of sense in literature. It's... Teachers and the whole system. When you have a lot of discipline (in bachelor degree, now it's much better), you just don't have enough time. Because you know... I want, at least, to have time for sleeping, eating 😅 Other thing is teacher. It really depends on this person you do read books or not. If I know that reading a short version of a book is enough to answer questions for next lesson, I will read a short version. In such moment I don't think about text, I think about how I will complete this discipline. Is it sad? Yup. Can I change it? Maybe, but I still have other disciplines, other hometasks😅 If speak about reading long books in general, I can read them but it takes time. If you like a story, you finish reading it. I think everything depends on interest. P. S. If you're student of language and literature... I'm afraid that lack of interest isn't a valid reason not to read a text, sorry😅
The Greek and scholastic philosophers might have been on to something about the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. While anecdotal I have noticed in my 2nd-8th graders a general apathy. They simply do not care if the work they are doing is good, if they are learning anything, and have a lack of wonder.
i love this video!! i've been doing a lot of research on the historicity of christianity recently and i find it fascinating how, no matter what truly happened, its story has prevailed throughout 2000 years and it made me think how we are made of stories. Our lives are stories we tell ourselves. I don't think everyone needs high literature but everyone needs stories. That's why i find literature important, also because this productivity obsession and need to get things in compressed notes etc is maybe what is fueling our mental illness epidemic. Because if you always have to be productive and function instead of letting yourself experience things, like reading a whole long book then it's easy to become depressed! And i find reading long books is much more an adventure than short books because you have so much time to get into it
For me, reading literature is about participating in the Great Conversation. Conversing with great men like Dostoevsky or Dante elevates one while habitual indulgence in short reels…well…you know where that leads.
Hi Robin, thank for the video. Very thoughtfull of you to consider the issue from a different angle. Your argument does makes sense, but I don't know what is the answer to it, except from your suggestion. I might ask my lecturers and see if they can answer it.
I think the value of humanities Is about really carrying and preserving humanity itself. Whenever I read a book, when I close it and go back to life, I feel more grounded, I see things with a little bit more depth and I'm keen to see what MY story is, the narrative I'm carrying... It's a way out from the daily rush of to-do lists, work and other stuff. It's about living time slowly and soaking it in.
i love reading books it’s a gaining knowledge for student like me being homeschool for years now is great but i have to deal being alone and only focus on myself and to my family and siblings
You dont need to look far to see why reading and writing matters. One simple observation: Look at cinema. How often do we hear nowadays that a movie is written badly? How often do big studios recycle old ideas to create inspirationless movies? And the list goes on. This applies to a lot of aspects of present life imo. We have the technology and menpower to create pictures which look better than reality but the stories are lifeless and dull. Writers and readers make life worth living and fill dead things with a spark of soulfulness to say it in a cheesy way; especially in a time were EVERYTHING is text. Children and people of all ages read a lot. Comments, captions, titels etc. but ask them to read a book and they are tired after 5 pages. I feel like the humanties were downplayed by the capital as not "worth" it but i hope there comes a time were people realize how important that stuff is and that money, technology and growth does nothing without a "soul" and people who care for it. (English isnt my native language i am sorry)
I also feel the real reason why most young adults are not taking reading these books seriously it’s because, they feel that these books don’t relate to their life or future in anyway.
It's, imho, probably the vastness of the concepts, things to do, explore, there's too much, too many passions, interests, we develop a focus on the horizontally, not vertically. But, in order to give value, a "why", the answer lays in the dive in, the intensive, your istance of the Ulysses match exactly what i think. Also, the school system (at least the italian one that i attended), just focus on too much repetition, without let the students have the possibility (too many subject) to re-elaborate a certain concept, idea, so the approach could just be a passive one, where the information just floods you, hoping that something will float on the surface.
I am a reader, always have been. 65 years old with two sons in early 20s. No matter how hard I tried they never became readers. They are now in college and read less than I did in 8th grade. One thing reading did for me was give me a good imagination and things to think about. When I am alone or having to wait somewhere I am at peace with my thoughts. They are not, in fact they panic when they don't their phones. Reading books, from Little House on Prairie to LOTR to Tale of Two Cities, didn't matter what, enriched my life beyond measure. I too struggle with digital addiction but am fighting to get through paper books again.
As a casual reader, if long book is fun, I'll read it, if it's not I'm not. I can't imagine reading for university... As a CS student, I finished university without reading a single book.
i've been noticing this in myself too because i've only read two books this year :((( im also doing a masters in marketing so im constantly surrounded by social media and technology and wanna strip myself from it again
This is something I’ve recently noticed in myself too. I decided to severely limit my screen time and only use my tech if it passes through „Am I doing this intentionally or just for the pleasure of it?” question. Your video is the first one I’ve unintentionally clicked on in 9 days. I have found myself interested in philosophy and literature again, but I lacked the „why?” to actually go through with it. I am currently in my early 20’s and I was raised by academic parents, my mother holding a Masters degree in the Polish language and literature. I was raised to value literature and art all my life and went to university for it too, and here I am, struggling with a thick book. It used to be easier for me too. Even though I know the value and how important it is to know what the people before you have already discovered, I still have trouble paying attention to a challenging, long text. I don’t have a solution for this, all I’m trying to do is to ease myself back into reading. Like everything else in our body and mind, the ability to read and focus for extended periods of time is one that needs to be consistently trained, or it rusts away.
It also seems that many people only seem to read when they want to brag about something or prove that they are living some aesthetic. And like you said, we were taught to pass the test but not the joy of simply being a lifelong learner.
There's a guy who wrote a book (short) about the rights of the reader. I have exercised some of those rights. The right to skip boring parts, the right to read the ending first, the right to stop reading if it's dull, the right to read chapters in different order.... there were others too, which I forgot or skipped over. But the point of reading is pleasure. If people aren't getting this, then they won't read. Start by giving toddlers decent books. I can get over the awful crap that is published for children today.
You nailed it. It really is about facilitating immersion so students (and old people like me) can experience literature being the “looking glass into our humanity” (did I misquote you? Sorry). What “Ulysses” was for you “Infinite Jest” was/is for me. I re-read it at least every 2-3 years. And it is all doable, even with a full time job and other responsibilities. We HAVE TO continue to work out the muscle of turning text into magnificent worlds in our heads ☺️
I read the Atlantic article soon after discovering this channel, and I was hoping you would make a video about it! I am completing a masters in English and I have found hardest part of my job (TA for non-major undergraduate literature courses) is to impart on the students some sense of why the assigned readings, or books in general, aren't a waste of time. At the same time, I found myself reading less literature ever since i've started studying it. More than attention spans, I think we could look to economics as a bigger factor--cost of living and tuition are so high in the US, undergrad and grad students work at least one job/internship full time (or close to it) while studying. In previous generations, there were more opportunities for a student to devote hours a day to reading without sacrificing basic needs like sleep.
For me i had a hard time reading classical literature simply because it was boring to me and it was never introduced to me in a way that was interesting by teachers or professors. But I can sit down and read a manga for hours and not get bored, or just pause before i’ve been reading for too long, and it’s not because the visuals are great but because of the story and how the message is presented. I think that people and students are becoming more autonomous with what they want to read or engage with, and i assume students are understanding they don’t want to be forced to read something simply because of its importance, rather, because the writing and literature is interesting, engaging with an amazing story.
The simple act of learning is why I think it’s important. Kids aren’t taught to learn for knowledge, they are taught to memorize. So they don’t have the discipline to sit and read to learn. (Whether that is a great work of literature or a modern fictional novel) we also have to take into account our current social climate. People want to be told what to think and what to believe based on emotional biases. They don’t want to research for themselves. Also, we are all just so busy. Busier than ever before. Some folks simply don’t have the time to sit and read for knowledge or enjoyment.
I’m jealous that you have this relationship with literature. I read more than the average person but I’ve never felt that feeling before. It feels more like entertainment entertainment aspect or a requirement for me understanding something.
I’m not a teacher, but here is something that I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. Our brains weren’t made to consume the amount of information that we are exposed to on our digital devices. Our brains need a break from overconsumption of information. The practice of slowing down and reading an entire book is a brain-healthy practice. Not only is it important to engage in reading and processing literature as a human being, but it actually helps us to think more clearly. It’s a practice of slowing down and being in the moment. And it’s not just reading. We’ve become a society of impatient people rushing around and wanting everything instantaneously.
to your point, i think there's a chance a lot of young people do not see any reason to complete longer texts if there is no tangible outcome for them. with so many things pulling at your attention (social media, part time jobs since life is getting more expensive, hustle culture, etc) it can be difficult to justify to yourself investing several hours into a book if the value proposition is not there (for the reader). additionally, i think society in general is in a doom spiral towards maximum efficiency and productivity (in ways i think are very surface level) and the richness reading longer texts brings to a reader's life cannot be quantified by this productivity machine and so it gets cut out of the picture. to society, there is no money to be made by engaging in something fully, so why would you?
One of my first semesters in college, I took an art class that . . . did not deliver as advertised. The teacher ignored the class title and spent every assignment proving that art can be anything, made with anything, no limits, no standards, no meat, just go crazy with new mediums and see what comes out of it. This actively broke down my deeply-rooted "why" for not just visual art, but also literary art. The destructive effect was worsened and intensified by how little time I had to do my homework; each of my classes acted like it was my full-time job, and I actually did have a part-time job, so I had to rush to spit out the experimental garbage my teacher asked for just to complete assignments. Fork out money for "high-brow" materials I didn't know what to do with and would never use again, because the entire class peer-pressured me into it while pretending not to. It was horrible, and I actively buckled under the weight. Then, the university had their dance teams perform at a weekly devotional. Dance is perhaps the art form I have least engagement with, but the theme of the show was "Art is . . .", and each dance was unique in style, tone, and content. It hit me how expressive and varied the dances were, always emphasizing different aspects of the artistic genre to communicate different things. I left that devotional having had an epiphany. Art is a medium for human communication. We can use whatever we want, to say whatever we want, however we want, to whomever we want. But the core function of art is still human communication. The skill to craft that artwork is related and can be an expressive performance all its own. But art and the humanities exist for humans to communicate with each other in a richer and deeper way than straightforward communication can on its own. I decided from that moment on that every creative output I made for any of my classes would mean something to me. No more shallow meeting of the requirements, checking the boxes and that's it. I would say something that mattered, at the very least, to me. My homework would engage my mind and soul in one way or another. But I still had very little time on my hands. So for the final class project, I started with the assignment description and brainstormed what types of messages would naturally fit with those parameters, how I could use those opportunities to say something meaningful to me, and problem-solved a workflow that would allow me to make it at the needed quality but quickly and easily. This became my standard workflow for the rest of my college experience. The result was a slideshow of colorful images that each gave a unique context to the same meaningless symbol. When I presented it in class, I stated that the symbol stands in for whatever the reality of Heaven and Deity is --- because there is some answer to that question --- and each image represents a different human perspective on that singular answer. It blew my class away. Even more so when I explained that my only equipment were Microsoft PowerPoint and my computer's default photo editor. No Photoshop. Just my parents' camera. Some books to hold up the assignment-mandated piece of shelving plastic that the teacher provided. A spray bottle with some water in it. And the assignment-mandated bits of other assignments from that semester, to provide the "truth of God" image. Amazing how I subverted their implicit expectations by following their stated ones. I'm really glad the art project helped some of them in personal ways, as well. One classmate made a point of thanking me after class for it.
This is not just the case in the humanities. Its also very true for hard sciences. We just rush through hundreds of concepts without truely udnerstanding the concept or the the thought process that led to that concept. It deprives students of the ability to develop the cognitive processes that make a great scientist. I think that is due to the key goal of education which is only to get to the next stage.
I agree, while I expect higher education not to have the problem I'm about to describe, a lot of my primary education in the sciences were memorizing facts instead of understanding the process-the rigor, humility, creativity and teamwork required to get science to progress!
I can only imagine how much it gets in the way of more interdisciplinary research or lateral-thinking application if the ones funding the research only want a very, very specific thing invented or only want support for a biased conclusion that actual boots-on-the-ground research will find to be untrue.
this. They're constantly cutting down the years spent on a degree and compressing subjects upon subjects in as little semesters as possible without giving the students the capacity to truly integrate the concepts and techniques that are being studied
this is killing me right now oh my god. maybe it's something wrong with me but i really can't just keep memorizing concepts after concepts when there is not time nor resources to actually UNDERSTAND all those things! all those concepts heavily depend on history of said concepts (like time they were created, other concepts and theories that were a base for newer concepts) and they also usually have a lot of nuances that could help to actually understand the idea that we are supposed to study, but none of that is ever covered or mentioned and there is never time for it because time is pretty limited. i'm not sure if it's just me problem or a legit thing, but that's what i feel.
@@kashyappatel3458 it definitely not as extreme. People often complain there are “too many topics” in the sciences but there really aren’t, the issue is that the classes aren’t removing content because it builds and is necessary. Meanwhile the humanities can, and do, water down their content because it doesn’t build in the same way.
@@tudu-c3y Not being rude but this is probably a function of your personality or the level of classes you’re taking in the sciences. In an intro level survey class you can’t expect to understand everything, but you need to develop an intuition-the more nuance comes in later classes.
For example, in genchem or Ochem you can introduce orbitals and the SWE, but you can’t give someone a rigorous understanding of it at that level. To do that they’d need more mathematical maturity, so it’s introduced in a pchem class after the student has taken rudimentary ODEs/linear algebra.
Like, how can you understand what the Hamiltonian operator *really* is without first knowing what an eigenfunction is or what an inner product is? You can’t.
Meanwhile, in the humanities, they can (and do) just remove content to appeal to consumers.
I'm a 60 year old teacher and I find my own ability to stick with a paper book has diminished in the wake of my internet addiction. I listen to audiobooks during my commute every day and have completed many long books that way, but I have to work at reading books on paper, however much I actually enjoy the experience when I make myself do it. I can't imagine how a teenager who's been reading excerpts in their classes and who constantly watches TikTok instead of long-form video essays like I do is going to be able to sit down and read Moby Dick.
You're not alone. I've been reading Moby Dick for two years. Did a grad program in philosophy and law school years ago. Keep trying, is all I can come up with.
You need a good place to fall in love with reading for example like a 1930 house that someone could let you stay at and you discover that they have an incredible library.. it's that type of situation that most people they don't get to experience you havecto be lucky too
@@edgartokman4898 I do have a wonderful personal library, as does my mom. Perhaps you're right about getting away for a bit, without the internet, and just spending some time with books.
The brainrot is real, and I hate it.
I can sustain reading while flying. Also on holiday I will find a reading place.
Reading aloud some Dickens with my adult son has worked during the summer too. More time consuming than silent reading but it stops me skipping and/ or bailing!
I just wanted to highlight the fact that Robin is is one of the few RUclipsrs uploading his videos almost uncut and talking for 20 min straight and in a really engaging way, congrats to this skill!
It’s a rare skill for sure. ❤
I think many students aren’t taught to love reading because they are so focused on passing a test. They are afraid to get things wrong out of the fear of being punished. I feel students need to have a voice. They need to be able to express their point of view when analyzing a text, not necessarily the teacher’s point of view. This would require a complete overhaul of the education system. I think literature is important because you won’t understand the world around you without it. I’m finding that many young people don’t understand literary references in television and film because they aren’t familiar with the texts that are being referred to, making them unable to fully understand what they’re watching. I also think there is inherent value in understanding the beauty and complexity of language. Language can be just as beautiful as music, and it is in such music that the human condition can be revealed.
I am a film professor, and year over year most of them have trouble sitting through a whole film, too. Films are like books were when I was their age-this really high effort thing. Original thinking is definitely affected. I fee for them because we are all at war with the algorithm for our attention, and it’s a tough fight.
As an engineer, about as far from the humanities as one can get, my perspective is that great literature teaches us how to live and in turn makes life worth living.
I second that as an engineer myself. Going through studies the focus was only ever on technical learning. Now I feel like I should have gone to the library more whilst I studied after having put more time into reading in recent years and from gaining so much insight and communicative abilities from it
Thank you. I’m a literature PhD and my engineer brother (who hates reading except audiobooks!) agrees. There’s no reason why we can’t appreciate each other’s disciplines.
@@anastasis-cm5hw You can appreciate another discipline while mourning the rigor that no longer exists in it. Undergraduate level humanities and social studies classes have become ridiculously watered down in a way that hasn’t happened in the hard sciences/engineering.
Source: An applied sciences PhD with a liberal arts *and* engineering undergrad.
@@jacob7270 they’ve become watered down because we’re constantly having to cater to STEMlords that question our existence. I have this conversation with my colleagues constantly. We would love to put students through the paces but we’re hamstrung. It’s not us, it’s the administration, and the administration is catering to STEMlords.
@@jacob7270 also, lol, we definitely still put students through the paces any way we can
I’m currently a Masters student at tasked with reading 1-2 250 page books every week and my problem as that we don’t have time to engage deeply with the text. It’s all about speed reading in order to have a meaningful contribution to the class discussion. But then when you do the recommended reading you realize that you don’t even need to read the text, you just need to read the theories and papers. Which makes reading the text feel pointless because you aren’t reading for enjoyment or even for understanding.
I read about 100 pages an hour if it's literature. For technical books, I'm slower. I read and re-read over 100 books a year. But then again I pick books that I enjoy. If I don't, after a few chapters, I'll skip over or just stop reading. Books aren't all the same. Some are quite dreadful. It's okay not to read them. I prefer books that are over 50 years old unless they are mystery/detective stories. I figure that if a book is still around after that long, it's a good one.
@ good for you I guess?
My last two semesters in college,I read around 250 pages of literature a day. After I graduated, I didn't read a single page of literature for about four years.
US culture is obsessed with analytics and outcomes. We no longer learn for the sake of learning, we perform tasks to test well or achieve a specific goal. I feel this started to gain traction at the turn of the millennium when the country was concerned with how we compared to Asia in the sciences. Art and the humanities has been cast aside in favor of standardized tests and measurable student outcomes.
it's neoliberalism, a way to justify privatization and cutting costs
Humanities are useless and pretentious garbage. They could be taught in such a way that they aren't. But that doesn't happen. You're just encouraging people to waste money on useless degrees.
It's not culture and it's not just the US, it's neo liberalism (or capitalism more roughly) like the person above me said. Economics drive policies like this and the peoples material conditions drive their behaviour, which people confuse for culture. I don't think culture is something as simple as how people behave, especially when it's only a reaction to the environment and people across the world regardles of their culture react the same way. It's almost like saying running is your culture, because you have a beast chasing you, but that's actually just a normal human reaction unrelated to culture. Things/people are this way because of economic policies, which directly affect our lives and environment, not culture. Culture isn't just any behaviour people engage in.
Joe gets it.
Not attention span alone, it is focus. Sustainable focus. That starts with books as we are young, then we read hard books. No wonder elite students cannot read, when they do not read. Reading develops focus, focus helps develop fluency...
I agree that we need to engage deeply, and that means teaching kids to love to learn. In Nicolas Carr's the shallows he outlines this truth. Our memories require deep engagement to record long-term...
Respectfully, it doesn't help that every institution in America and the West broadly is undergoing a legitimacy crisis, and that large disasters the adults in the room were supposed to prevent are multiplying. For gods sakes, we've asked American students to just accept the possibility of their being gunned down as normal, and then completely failed them when public health dictated a lockdown.
In my opinion isnt focus. The problem is dealing with boredom.
@@hugoantunesartwithblender wouldn't that be the engagement I mentioned - focus is sustained engagement ;)
@@alohm No. The degree how much you can focus depends on 2 things. Either is something interesting to you, or you can deal with lots of boredom, what means you will be able to read something you are not so interested, what means less engagement
I think its modern life that does this.. not anything else.. theres always something in the back of the mind because of the pace of this life.. I cant read a book without thinking Im wasting time.. or i start reading and then I remember I sent a text to someone and dont have a reply.. or i remember a job app that didnt get back to me.. or an email I need to send.. the pace and hyperproductivity of modern life always has something running in the back of the mind and so it feels like a waste of time doing anything that takes a long time.. I think its really that simple.. I cant even watch a movie without feeling like Im wasting my life..
Modernity comes with a lot of benefits (science, technology, medicine, etc.), but there are still a lot of problems we need to address as a society. If you haven’t already, I recommend reading The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, by Max Weber. It touches upon a lot of what you’re describing.
Sounded like we all have rewired our brain plasticity to adapt with the crazy of the modern info flood. Now it's weird to go back to a slower pace as slice of life.
@@kzpm9796 It really can be. As much as I love to dig through old texts, it can be hard to sit still and focus. Perhaps ADHD is the natural result of a society that conditions us into constantly seeking stimulation.
The Venn diagram between how people feel when they've drunk the capitalist realism kool-aid and how people feel when they have depression and anxiety has a lot of overlap.
@@SpocksCat Even after studying for so long, it still feels almost surreal that people used to work only to fulfil their needs, even if their employers offered more pay for extra labor. I'm actually rereading a lot of Weber's work right now, and it's pretty eye-opening. I recommend it to anyone with an interest in the loss of meaning, and the rise of grindset culture.
What I find pretty weird is that parents just don't appreciate reading as much as they used to. When I was younger, I hated reading. In fact, I hadn't read a single fiction story besides my textbooks until 9th grade, and then suddenly, I became such a reader. But now that I have found an interest in reading (not just fiction, but philosophy, non-fiction, articles and even research papers) I'm suddenly being reprimanded for reading, as it is a "waste of time"? Suddenly I'm 19, and knowledge, peace or my interests don't matter because what use is knowledge if it doesn't pay bills, doesn't help you get a career and your highschool teachers call literature a dead end (in their defense, they teach STEM subjects so).
I want to read books, in fact, I'm so so eager to read so many books, but suddenly I've grown up and reading isn't cool anymore. I'm in second year of college and people laugh at me when I take my degree seriously. In fact, not a single student in my class loves literature when we're all majoring in literature. Maybe I'm just in a bad place, but I only feel discouraged every time I beat my scrolling addiction to read a novel, or learn something new and then a literature major laughs at me and says they've just read the summary and got better grades than me.
"people laugh at me when I take my degree seriously"
whoa - that it so perverse.
Don't ever give up. You do this for you, not for the others or for the grades. Let them be delusional, let them stay on surface when you go deep and feel more. Take pride in that without telling them. Celebrate it and this sincerety will beat the damn sarcasm in the long run. I wish you all the best. Can relate a lot with my humanitarian degree
As someone who got an MFA in creative writing so that I could one day teach it all sorts of levels I love your love for reading if students who read the summaries are getting better grades than you then that shows how little your professors are actually trying to make them think about the assigned reading where is you are already leagues ahead of them and that desire coupled with your drive is going to help you through so much more of life than what sounds like being negative for the sake of the status quo
You're doing things right. Take care of yourself and don't stoop to normie level. Of course sometimes you might need to cheat by reading an exerpt just because there's no time left but ultimately you can always go back to reading that book later.
Wow, that is so sad that they say that. Just know that reading literature and actually taking it in will make you a better thinker, it'll make you a better person and it will make you more disciplined. I think reading literature will also give you soft skill that these other people in your major don't have and probably won't ever have with an attitude like that. Everyone is too motivated about getting a better job which ultimately is all about money. Yes, you need to earn money to live, but you don't have to be rich to live a good life.
Love your point about knowing ‘the why?’ Reading helps people to develop empathy
Empathy, understanding, and an escape from your life. I read Oliver Twist as a kid, and it made me realize that my life was pretty good. 😊
the value of stories:
1- we learn from stories when we read about the changes characters go through or the complex decisions they have to make. exposure to hundreds or thousands of quality stories gives us wisdom and psychological insight.
2- reading good books is pleasurable like eating good food is pleasurable. you could survive by drinking meal replacement shakes everyday, but it's pretty amazing to enjoy a good meal with close friends and meaningful conversation.
The one argument my boyfriend and I have over is over reading and the value of it - it really is the one thing we truly disagree on. He just doesnt see the value in it - to him it is just too much effort for too little reward and I dont know how to change his mind or explain to him that the experiences of reading, and of slowing down, are so important to us as human beings. Reading forces you to slow down and consider stuff which is so important when daily life is so rushed and instant. Reading is a chance to empathise with different experiences of life from yours in a world were people are increasingly disconnected and individualistic. Sharing stories and art are at the centre of humanity. In the words of Mr Keating, science, law and engineering allow society to live and function. Poetry and love and art give us a reason to function.
I don't read to slow down. I read to immerse myself in another world. I become the main protagonist, whether male, female, child, or any race and social background. I am all of them. This is the secret of reading.😊
Get a new boyfriend
Reading might not give you a job but it gives you a mind. That’s why.
The thing you described about being closely engaged with Ulysses over a long period of time is exactly what the appeal of fandoms is. The only difference is that when the text is actually good the experience is more profound
It's funny. I'm a mathematician and I recently arrived to a similar conclusion on why young people are not interested in learning math. We force them to spend too much time doing unnecessary calculations, which creates friction and doesn't help understand why everyone should learn it in the first place.
Careerism eats everything.
@@matthewcaldwell8100 Yep. Careerism eats the soul.
But if anything, the "unnecessary calculations" have become quicker and less arduous to perform; log tables, endless long divisions, etc, have been replaced by the humble calculator (I'm speaking specifically in the context of higher education). Not saying you're wrong; but this cannot be the explanation for a *reduction* in interest in learning maths over the years if the burden of tedious calculation has actually trended down. Perhaps you believe that there has instead been a net increase in such calculations? I think that's very unlikely. Insofar as young people are being put off by maths due to the sheer tedium of calculation, their forebears had it worse 🤷♂️
@DanielTanios that's a good point. First, I don't have data on this, but I wouldn't say there has been a decrease in interest in math. My impression is that the sources of frustration from learning math in most students have been more or less the same for the last few generations. Probably I didn't make it clear by saying "young people", since it could be understood as "the young people of today".
Second, when I say calculations I mostly don't mean things like addition, multiplication or logarithms. I mean things like applying Bashkara formula to solve second degree equations, solving systems of linear equations by hand, computing determinants of matrices... In general, things that require following a simple but long algorithm and many simple calculations, that even with the help of a calculator are tedious and prone to error from humans.
Thanks for helping me clarify.
The mathematicians lament is a great book that touches on this topic
The rise of careerism within academia has been poison to the humanities, and to our society's civic education in general. How can a society justify charging such extreme costs to receive an education (specifically in the US) if it isn't under the guise that the entire purpose of that education is for a higher income?
I had a similar epiphany recently. You spend 3-4 years in college studying a “useful” degree just to run into the same problems as those who study a “useless” degree, which led me to think that if I studied what I actually wanted to study in the first place (which is philosophy) then I would have at least been better off with the skills a philosophy degree teaches than what a finance degree teaches
Personally, literature (and art in general) is all about connecting with other people in a way that isn’t possible in other ways. There’s a wonderful quote from Alan Bennett’s The History Boys: “The best moments in reading are when you come across something - a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things - which you had thought special and particular to you. Now here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out and taken yours.” To me, that’s why generative AI is so offensive: it takes that human connection away. Instead, it bottles up the collective experiences of many and, in the process, dilutes it to become all but meaningless. That’s why I believe the liberal arts are more important than ever and why I continue to pursue them long after finishing university.
My perspective on this is this analogy: Why do you travel then, if you can see pictures and google view of that place and it is easier that way? Why do you travel? - Well to experience the real thing authentically. Well, it is the same with reading literature then.
And that is where we have to stop and note that not everyone wants to really TRAVEL. Even of the people that say they want to travel to different countries, a lot of them are driven by the want to display status in social media.
@@tempestandacomputer6951 That is true. I am one of those people not hugely interested in travelling and people think that’s odd
@@tempestandacomputer6951 Absolutely, this was my thought as well. Perhaps both reading and travelling aren't for everyone
@@anjalisudarsan7674 I didn't claim it is for everyone. But generally a lot of people today would agree that travel has an inherent value in of itself and that it is enriching. In my observations this group of people that claim that travel is enriching is larger than the group that sees genuine value in reading great volumes of literature and so my analogy is a good way of explaining it to many. Those are my opinions and my observations, maybe you disagree.
I agree with you
“The Stolen Focus” by Johan Hari is an INCREDIBLE book I can’t recommend highly enough - it looks into the why and what for (!) our attention is being diluted, and what to do with it.
It’s a problem that ruins experience of being present in life, and ultimately - of being an individual.
Seconded, excellent book.
I teach intro to composition and rhetoric to undergrads in the United States. I don’t have any grand points to make about literature, but it’s obvious to me that students don’t read anymore. My word is not law, but I do think a lack of reading has led to a lack of deep thoughts and/or critical thinking, though it’s probably been going on for a while. It seems to me that the problems in the wider world are playing a role in the decline of serious reading that ties in nicely with the relaxing of reading standards. It is not a coincidence that studying literature is getting less rigorous right at the same time as colleges are operating more and more like businesses. Education is not content, but it’s being asked to turn into content imo
It’s mainly the existence of the smartphone and social media. This is happening everywhere, not just the US.
Great video. I teach English and I find that the biggest barrier is students asking “why does this matter?” It’s one of my favorite conversations to have with them, and your observations here have hit the nail on the head. If students don’t know the purpose of pursuing their own understanding of these texts, then they’ll clock out. Again, great video!
Being told what should be important to them. Sad.
I think all educators get asked that question a ton.
This right here makes the case for Classical Education, which is rightly gaining much ground these days as we realize just how empty, hollow, and even detrimental modern curriculum and pedagogical approaches really are.
I’m a teacher in a Classical middle school, where my students read (cover to cover) books like Homer’s Odyssey, Shakespeare, Beowulf, and so on. Yes, 7th graders are reading the full and unabridged Homeric epics. Yes, it can be done. And yes, they love it. Ask me anything.
Robin, I just want to let you know that you have inspired me to go back to study philosophy at university despite already having a business degree. Thank you for what you do.
That is amazing! Very happy for you. Thanks for sharing
It's almost exactly the same case with me!
@@BookOfLight330 😊👍
I personally love literature because stories are powerful. They change the world. As humans we have a tendency to tell stories whether its in the form of a picture or words . Stories reflect human condition and human psyche . Studying literature improves critical thinking skills
Agree with your take that a big problem with education is the assumption that reading is important for its own sake, without making the practical benefits real.
Personally, I think that the impact of phones and social media is overstated. I know that's a hot take, but I'm old enough to remember in the '80s when everyone blamed MTV for declining attention spans, heh.
But something that doesn't get enough attention is the fact that kids are overscheduled. Yeah, 900 pages may not seem like a lot, but considering that kids are tested constantly, get pages and pages of HW from their other courses, and then are expected to be social creatures (at an age when they're trying to figure life out), it's no surprise that kids don't read.
Reason 1 why longer more intensive Humanities texts are necessary : From the standpoint of History. A quote goes "If we don't learn from the mistakes of the past, we are condemned to repeat them." For example when we read Les Miserables, we learn parts of the history of the French Revolution. The politics of those days leading up to the storming of the Bastille and the Reign of Terror resemble in part the political thinking and events in our modern times.
Reason 2: By exercising our muscles of discipline and commitment in reading and studying this long texts we get stronger mentally and academically. This gives us good practice in say for example, problem solving skills where the answer to issues and problems in modern day life are not always obvious. We need Reason 3: Critical Thinking skills. For example, the Critical Thinking skills we learn from disciplining ourselves to make it through The Republic and actually strengthening our minds to think Critically through events and issues in our modern daily lives are invaluable.
Through books we are living another person's life, and that's the key point. We get to know ourselves better with literature when we ask these deep questions: why, how and etc. I believe that without literature and deep questions, we live a life without meaning. The problem with education system is that student just need to do well at tests even without knowing the concept itself, but the literature is not about tests, it's about deep engagement with the text, with the idea of the book.
I have not fleshed out this thought, but i like to believe that Science and Math is the HOW of our world whilst Art is the WHY.
I also see the importance in convincing students why reading is valuable, though I am not sure that this has ever been the primary motivation for them to engage with great books in the past. I believe it was the demand coming from a place of authority that pushed students to read difficult works. Professors in the humanities felt more confident wielding their authority when the prevailing ideology underscored the importance of their discipline. As the ideological landscape shifted to marginalize the humanities, professors lost confidence in the value of what they teach. Since this ideology permeates students themselves, professors feel they lack the legitimacy to insist on high standards, so they excuse students and settle for their lack of attention span. They are less demanding because of their marginalized position in academia.
Notice how many who attempt to justify the value of reading mistakenly regard wisdom and critical thinking as self-evident goods in a world where such wisdom is not celebrated and critical thinking is often punished. They are failing to recognize how those who work in academia are deeply disappointed, looking for enjoyment on the margins, where they cannot simply defend the value of wisdom but instead must question why and how certain types of knowledge are privileged over others.
Overall, great thinking, Robin. You're brilliant, as always :)
I like honestly suggest it’s not just focus whilst trying to read (the ability), it’s that they aren’t investing the necessary time to read a large book in the first place. Anecdotally they spending less time studying full stop.
Appreciate the longer content 🙏 I struggle to finish books over three hundred pages so these videos help alot
Glad I could help!
Another aspect of this is simply that nobody has time for anything anymore. We have to go to the gym, work, take care of pets and children, play some videogames, watch some movies, take care of personal finances, solve unexpected problems etc. We don't live simple lives anymore of just going to work for one portion of the day only to return home and read a book for two hours. That's just really rare nowadays. We've got many distractions and many many things to do which is wild. Reading has become secondary for many people instead of a priority.
I say the main cause of all this is the “Instant Reward Mentality of Modern Life”. Nowadays we want everything fast, everything must be efficient, everything must be informative, something to achieve from our actions, some meaning out of everything. People drive fast, Corporations cutting cost, Books turn into summary, Videos turn to short form content……We can’t do anything without getting something out of it anymore. No passion, no joy and thus no personal connections to ourselves and to others. It feels like the dystopian world from Rad Bradbury 451F
The righteous indignation you mentioned drove me into homeschooling about 9 years ago. My oldest is now 17 and a senior. He's currently reading the same Iliad you have in the thumbnail. Keeping him going is challenging, but he does it, slowly.
We agreed together to put restrictions on the web based media, but he continues to be distracted, he daydreams, yesterday he invented a new board game.
The funny thing to me is that even though he isn't that motivated to lean into reading very hard or with great energy, he still has a sense of pride in having read the things he has.
I think that the process of diving into literature little by little, day after day, he comes to understand within himself what the value is.
I graduated from product design, and the most important thing I learnt was to ask myself "why" before designing anything, if the "why" solves a problem, has a purpose, then I should keep going with it, if not the idea isn't worth keeping. The question why is truly powerful.
My personal reason for reading canonical books: it nourishes that part of me that is eternally human.
unfortunately, digital motion is more addictive and exciting than simple physical objects or written texts on paper. Without reading, a person's vocabulary will not only decrease, but also critical thinking and the ability to think more abstractly. Your opinions, ideas, enlightenment begin to disappear.
I see you took my recommendation of Fagles to heart ❣
That being said, the emphasis on convergent ways of thinking has made reading a rather bothersome activity for most students. Consider that even most Ph.Ds are terribly myopic and reductionistic in the ways they think. Then, even worse, we have secondary schools that fail to equip students with any substantive thinking skills...
Your discussion of engaging so heavily with Ulysses actually touches on my issue with my literature degree. My uni forces students to focus on multiple subjects (unusual for my country) and consequently we can't actually spend much time per book. I have actually forced myself to engage less with works because my workload is already overwhelming and I can't afford to devote so much time to one thing. As someone who would read articles and write analysis for fun it's disheartening. All of this is saying nothing about my classmates seeming disinterest in anything we study; I don't really know anyone else who would actually enjoy discussing classical literature despite being on a literal degree for it...
It is definitely a huge challenge for me to articulate to my high school English students why reading literature is so important. I try my best to give my students books they can relate to in some way and guide them through the process of reading, not just to check boxes or meet outcomes, but to understand what they read and FEEL it. Explaining the "why" is a must with each new text we study in my class, be it short story, novel, play, or essay. I don't want them to just do the things, but to actually grow from them.
I'm a physics student who also holds a deep admiration of the humanities, specifically litterature.
To me, the issue of focus is, i wanna say common, in the way that i don't think entering university and suddenly struggling to focus and keep at something, is a new thing. Personally i've gotten by while doing very little schoolwork and still getting top grades, because of raw intellect. Going into uni, i knew that my having never had to sit down and study intensively would be a big problem for me, i didn't know how to, and i'm still learning that no, i won't always understand from halfheartedly listening to the lecture, and yes i will have to read the textbook and, more importantly, work at the problems until i understand them, and most of the time, that will take a hell of a lot longer than 5 minutes, but i have to stick with it. What i'm trying to say is that i think anyone who has never had cause to really focus and push through when things get difficult, can run into issues when entering higher education. Whether this applies to a larger subset of students today compared to previously, i can't say. With current affairs being what they are, it wouldn't surprise me though.
As for the question of why. I feel much that same as you, Robin, that litterature provides a unique insight into the human condition, but more than that, for me litterature and science are not necessarily as opposite as they're sometimes presented. To me, both science and the humanities are manifestations of the innately human impulse to understand and explore the world we live in. They might be different approaches, but in the end, I wanna be a physicist because i want to always further my understanding of the world, and i read books for the same reason.
i’m a second year english student currently taking a module on Modernism. when it came to joyce, we weren’t assigned the whole book but instead just a short excerpt from it. not a single one of my friends read it regardless, despite it being less than a page long
I blame late-stage capitalism, along with our phones. There is no ADHD epidemic, but a phone one. That and the incessant push both in schools and pop culture to be the best of the best. We're all burned out. I'm going to paraphrase Mark Twain by saying don't let education get in the way of your learning. Learning is interesting; data-driven education (teaching to state standardized tests) makes us jaded.
Okay, to your thesis here, the WHY of literature, and how we fail to teach this. Yes, a hundred times yes! Ultimately, I blame Dewey.
What is the value of the humanities? They are the history and future of our thoughts, passions, sufferings. They are soul of our culture, and without them, that soul will whither.
I thank you for this video, and I will be assigning it to my students going forward.
I have no background in literature, just a pleasure reader. For people struggling to read novels, my very amateur advice is to get infatuated with the writer *before* you get to their novels - I do this by reading their short stories/poems/essays first, the initial attraction once formed naturally allows for the capacity to "sit with them" for longer periods.
I’m grateful for the Greek educational system,because I got the basics of most fields and don’t really struggle to pick up knowledge. Living in the uk now,my focus and attention span has really shrunk and I feel bad for myself when I know I can do better.
Thank you for this video and your thoughts, Robin. I'm a lecturer for philosophy at university (in Germany) and I find the issue with reading and not really immersing deeply into longer or more complicated pieces is not only there for my students but for myself too. It is a world-wide phenomenon I guess in the humanities and it appears to be a struggle also for lecturers and researchers because of how academia has developed. The pressure of being fast, creating large amounts of outputs (publishing papers in triple blind peer review AA++ journals 😉) and attract fundings and so on is somewhat insane and does not contribute to sharpen the skills needed for intensive closed reading. So again, thank you for provoking a process of thinking about this in a different way than "it's all because of TikTok". 🙂
I graduated as a dual degree scholar- that is to say that I have a bachelor’s in a STEM major and one in a Humanities/Social Sciences major. For me, it was the overall bridging and blending of knowledge in my hybrid education that was infinitely more influential to me than the specifics of information from either major. It was about both breadth and depth of understanding.
In my STEM major, there was an importance placed on my humanities/social science skills that allowed for improved communication of “hard science” concepts to a broader audience and making complex or detailed information more accessible.
I think the inverse can be true of the influence STEM values and techniques can have on literature and art and so on. They are not mutually exclusive. For example, the Fibonacci sequence has both artistic and mathematical significance, but it comes down to the fact that it has meaning because we say it does. If the humanities and social sciences provide a view of the human condition, technology and the STEM sciences can help us understand how that condition is evolving, not unlike determining the value of Δ (change) for a variable. As an example, maybe by exploring/quantifying the trends of certain vocabulary or literary devices across time can provide us with patterns for understanding how the ways we relate to the world or communicate ideas has changed. And even further, how historical events and technological advancement has influenced this throughout distinct periods of societal development.
Great video. My toughts on it, in my experience, our focus is not diminushed.
Attention span is basicly a myth. We stop watching/reading/doing something because of our feelings and how we react to them.
What changed is exactly tgat, how we react to boredom.
Now escaping boredom is tge main objective of social networks. Its their main service. We escape boredom, they present more ads.
But once i get used to boredom again, like being hours on nature, then i can read a lot more and focus more.
Im 30 y old, so before the smartphone boom, i could read on a biblio for 2 hours. I could write random stuff for hours. Because wasnt easy to escape boredom
You are a much needed thinker and voice in regard to this subject. --Retired English teacher
Starts here 1:52
I am happy I subscribed to your channel. When I was through half of your video I was thinking why are you even expecting so much out of something which is at the end of the day reading and just words. I mean merely reading can't bring any sort of inner discipline. But I am glad I saw the whole video because I get to know about your experience about that intensive course..
I might be off in my conclusion but from what I understood, it comes down to two things , firstly understanding the importance of doing something, not just verbally but actually realising from the heart why something is significant for oneself.
And second factor is simply love, loving and having passion for what you are doing...
I am sure you guys must have loved and enjoyed reading him so much that all the distractions, monotony etc didn't matter and sincerity just flowed..
And these principles can apply to almost all things we do in life, so great video mate!!😊
Thank you for this! I watched Kidology’s video on the same article and I feel like you compliment each other’s points so well. I’m very happy to have discovered your perspective and particularly your “ask why” approach.
I come from an Eastern European educational system that rewards individual “greatness” a bit more than (my perception of) the American system, but the underlying problems are the same. Peak performance comes at the cost of enjoyment, fulfilment, deep understanding, deep connection. We as “gifted students” were made to believe the “why” was just academic success, results in competitions, making our parents proud, making our schools proud of us. It was never about preparing to live a life of cultivated curiosity.
Thank you, again, for this! I’m picking up Ulysses again :)
The issue is that the bar for humanities education has been lowered so far, while the same has not happened for the sciences. Many people now just get an English degree now to “get a degree.”
Robin, I have been following your videos since the very first one and you have completely outdone yourself in this one 👏🏽👏🏽 very insightful presentation or suggestion of a complex transaction between person and literature! Well done!
As a newly qualified teacher, but a liberal artist, I have been noticing this diminishing of connection between young people and literature for a while. I found your thoughts very interesting and extremely viable. In a nutshell, I agree we need to find new ways to cultivate these connections in these changing times and that we need to make sure we are explicit with the 'why'!. Absolutely fundamental.
Maybe it’s because students are often directed towards the symbolism and stylistic forms of literature.. a more external and superficial look at text. I’m not a literature student and haven’t studied it in a while, but that’s a common complaint I hear.
For me, literature is like a mirror to my soul. I don’t know any other medium that makes me reflect on the human condition and my own life. It’s the long form that forces you to engage deeply. I wish I could explain better how impactful it is to me. I guess it’s knowing how connected we all are across time and space. It’s truly powerful what literature is capable of.
I gotta say i just recently found this channel and I'm liking this stuff
Stick around for more. :)
@@RCWaldun Hi. If you are truly interested in the human condition, I suggest you to read Jiddu Krishnamurti's The First and Last Freedom. Take your time. Don't rush. Summarise every paragraph. And just "watch" with the author.
I'm not a student anymore, but I found this topic so interesting, and I wish I had had an intensive reading class in college. I believe that would have helped me with my comprehension skills and being able to read books like Ulysses or The Recognitions. I find even books with easy to understand plots that don't have a unique style still take me a long time to read if it is more than 600 pages.
A thought provoking video, as always Robin! Here’s my perspective as a college student: I realized something when I caught myself complaining about the reading we have to do in my theatre class, even though it’s not heavy at all, and theatre is something I’m genuinely curious about. While ranting, I literally said “I don’t read” which is not true. I do read, but it feels like I don’t…. It’s just become all about feeding this false sense of productivity by getting through a book, and in turn missing out on the blessing of critical thinking and mental engagement that reading offers. I hope this made sense!!!!
I believe something that is crucially missing these days is the personal relationship between professors and studnets, almost like a mentor and their pupil. Because if they do have a deep connection, they can encourage you to dive into books that might be meaningful for you at the point where you're at. If we look at the book industry; it is not true that people read less - but they don't read as much canonical works anymore, which I can absolutely understand. We tend to find books we personally enjoy or which mean something to us. And that is different for everyone. If we learn to pick better books (and are encouraged to discuss about them) I believe we can get closer to an answer to this question.
I loved your video!! It had me in my head for a really long time thinking about my own admittedly short attention span and how I try to work with it to get things done. It also made me think about why I get so concerned about making a system for my attention span. Personally I’ve never pushed myself towards humanities but in other subjects I’ve wanted to understand things deeply and be able to recall the ideas and feelings it gave me. I think studying humanities is important because the ability to comprehend the feelings and ideas will allow me to see through a new perspective. Anyway, really appreciated this video!
So the college industrial complex that is known to overload students with homework are now complaining that students can't read. What do you all expect. How are they supposed to read when being overload and those who don't have parents pay for thier college have to work which means less time for homework and reading.
Great video. I'm glad someone is talking about this from this perspective instead of just bashing the students. I love literature myself, but this article did have me asking - what is the value of asking students to read books? I never really asked myself why reading was valuable to me. I just know that it is. So you're right, this should be addressed by the academics in this field. I think that for me, reading has allowed me to be more empathetic, understanding, and compassionate towards a wide range of people. Literature gives you a glimpse of how other people live, think, and feel, especially those whose circumstances are so different from yours. It can really change your perspective on so many things. Thanks for making me search for and articulate its value for myself!
Hmm... For me, as I student of master degree in English language and literature, answer is next. I read long books because: 1) I can get pleasure time; 2) I can share experience of reading with others; 3) I can discover something new about myself, other people and the world in general.
But I should be honest: I didn't read all texts for literature discipline. It's not due to lack of motivation and absence of sense in literature. It's... Teachers and the whole system.
When you have a lot of discipline (in bachelor degree, now it's much better), you just don't have enough time. Because you know... I want, at least, to have time for sleeping, eating 😅
Other thing is teacher. It really depends on this person you do read books or not. If I know that reading a short version of a book is enough to answer questions for next lesson, I will read a short version. In such moment I don't think about text, I think about how I will complete this discipline. Is it sad? Yup. Can I change it? Maybe, but I still have other disciplines, other hometasks😅
If speak about reading long books in general, I can read them but it takes time. If you like a story, you finish reading it. I think everything depends on interest.
P. S. If you're student of language and literature... I'm afraid that lack of interest isn't a valid reason not to read a text, sorry😅
The Greek and scholastic philosophers might have been on to something about the True, the Good, and the Beautiful.
While anecdotal I have noticed in my 2nd-8th graders a general apathy. They simply do not care if the work they are doing is good, if they are learning anything, and have a lack of wonder.
i love this video!! i've been doing a lot of research on the historicity of christianity recently and i find it fascinating how, no matter what truly happened, its story has prevailed throughout 2000 years and it made me think how we are made of stories. Our lives are stories we tell ourselves. I don't think everyone needs high literature but everyone needs stories. That's why i find literature important, also because this productivity obsession and need to get things in compressed notes etc is maybe what is fueling our mental illness epidemic. Because if you always have to be productive and function instead of letting yourself experience things, like reading a whole long book then it's easy to become depressed! And i find reading long books is much more an adventure than short books because you have so much time to get into it
I would love to see a video recommending books on literary theory for begginners😅
Awe I haven’t watched a video of yours in a couple of years. Forgot how much I enjoyed your content 😊
Welcome back!
Seems like yesterday that all the kids were reading Harry Potter.
Excellent video and explanation!
For me, reading literature is about participating in the Great Conversation. Conversing with great men like Dostoevsky or Dante elevates one while habitual indulgence in short reels…well…you know where that leads.
Love this of course, but gotta say, you have the best thumbnail style too
Hi Robin, thank for the video. Very thoughtfull of you to consider the issue from a different angle. Your argument does makes sense, but I don't know what is the answer to it, except from your suggestion. I might ask my lecturers and see if they can answer it.
Simply summated, it's just so we can better understand each other, and also what will make us happy.
I think the value of humanities Is about really carrying and preserving humanity itself. Whenever I read a book, when I close it and go back to life, I feel more grounded, I see things with a little bit more depth and I'm keen to see what MY story is, the narrative I'm carrying... It's a way out from the daily rush of to-do lists, work and other stuff. It's about living time slowly and soaking it in.
i love reading books it’s a gaining knowledge for student like me being homeschool for years now is great but i have to deal being alone and only focus on myself and to my family and siblings
You dont need to look far to see why reading and writing matters. One simple observation: Look at cinema. How often do we hear nowadays that a movie is written badly? How often do big studios recycle old ideas to create inspirationless movies? And the list goes on.
This applies to a lot of aspects of present life imo. We have the technology and menpower to create pictures which look better than reality but the stories are lifeless and dull.
Writers and readers make life worth living and fill dead things with a spark of soulfulness to say it in a cheesy way; especially in a time were EVERYTHING is text.
Children and people of all ages read a lot. Comments, captions, titels etc. but ask them to read a book and they are tired after 5 pages.
I feel like the humanties were downplayed by the capital as not "worth" it but i hope there comes a time were people realize how important that stuff is and that money, technology and growth does nothing without a "soul" and people who care for it.
(English isnt my native language i am sorry)
I also feel the real reason why most young adults are not taking reading these books seriously it’s because, they feel that these books don’t relate to their life or future in anyway.
It's, imho, probably the vastness of the concepts, things to do, explore, there's too much, too many passions, interests, we develop a focus on the horizontally, not vertically.
But, in order to give value, a "why", the answer lays in the dive in, the intensive, your istance of the Ulysses match exactly what i think.
Also, the school system (at least the italian one that i attended), just focus on too much repetition, without let the students have the possibility (too many subject) to re-elaborate a certain concept, idea, so the approach could just be a passive one, where the information just floods you, hoping that something will float on the surface.
"He who has a why to live can bear almost any how." - Friedrich Nietzsche
3:36 we’re readings excerpts like in Fahrenheit 451.
I am a reader, always have been. 65 years old with two sons in early 20s. No matter how hard I tried they never became readers. They are now in college and read less than I did in 8th grade. One thing reading did for me was give me a good imagination and things to think about. When I am alone or having to wait somewhere I am at peace with my thoughts. They are not, in fact they panic when they don't their phones. Reading books, from Little House on Prairie to LOTR to Tale of Two Cities, didn't matter what, enriched my life beyond measure. I too struggle with digital addiction but am fighting to get through paper books again.
As a casual reader, if long book is fun, I'll read it, if it's not I'm not.
I can't imagine reading for university... As a CS student, I finished university without reading a single book.
i've been noticing this in myself too because i've only read two books this year :(((
im also doing a masters in marketing so im constantly surrounded by social media and technology and wanna strip myself from it again
This is something I’ve recently noticed in myself too. I decided to severely limit my screen time and only use my tech if it passes through „Am I doing this intentionally or just for the pleasure of it?” question. Your video is the first one I’ve unintentionally clicked on in 9 days. I have found myself interested in philosophy and literature again, but I lacked the „why?” to actually go through with it. I am currently in my early 20’s and I was raised by academic parents, my mother holding a Masters degree in the Polish language and literature. I was raised to value literature and art all my life and went to university for it too, and here I am, struggling with a thick book. It used to be easier for me too. Even though I know the value and how important it is to know what the people before you have already discovered, I still have trouble paying attention to a challenging, long text. I don’t have a solution for this, all I’m trying to do is to ease myself back into reading. Like everything else in our body and mind, the ability to read and focus for extended periods of time is one that needs to be consistently trained, or it rusts away.
It also seems that many people only seem to read when they want to brag about something or prove that they are living some aesthetic. And like you said, we were taught to pass the test but not the joy of simply being a lifelong learner.
There's a guy who wrote a book (short) about the rights of the reader. I have exercised some of those rights. The right to skip boring parts, the right to read the ending first, the right to stop reading if it's dull, the right to read chapters in different order.... there were others too, which I forgot or skipped over. But the point of reading is pleasure. If people aren't getting this, then they won't read. Start by giving toddlers decent books. I can get over the awful crap that is published for children today.
You nailed it. It really is about facilitating immersion so students (and old people like me) can experience literature being the “looking glass into our humanity” (did I misquote you? Sorry). What “Ulysses” was for you “Infinite Jest” was/is for me. I re-read it at least every 2-3 years. And it is all doable, even with a full time job and other responsibilities. We HAVE TO continue to work out the muscle of turning text into magnificent worlds in our heads ☺️
I read the Atlantic article soon after discovering this channel, and I was hoping you would make a video about it! I am completing a masters in English and I have found hardest part of my job (TA for non-major undergraduate literature courses) is to impart on the students some sense of why the assigned readings, or books in general, aren't a waste of time. At the same time, I found myself reading less literature ever since i've started studying it.
More than attention spans, I think we could look to economics as a bigger factor--cost of living and tuition are so high in the US, undergrad and grad students work at least one job/internship full time (or close to it) while studying. In previous generations, there were more opportunities for a student to devote hours a day to reading without sacrificing basic needs like sleep.
For me i had a hard time reading classical literature simply because it was boring to me and it was never introduced to me in a way that was interesting by teachers or professors. But I can sit down and read a manga for hours and not get bored, or just pause before i’ve been reading for too long, and it’s not because the visuals are great but because of the story and how the message is presented.
I think that people and students are becoming more autonomous with what they want to read or engage with, and i assume students are understanding they don’t want to be forced to read something simply because of its importance, rather, because the writing and literature is interesting, engaging with an amazing story.
The simple act of learning is why I think it’s important. Kids aren’t taught to learn for knowledge, they are taught to memorize. So they don’t have the discipline to sit and read to learn. (Whether that is a great work of literature or a modern fictional novel) we also have to take into account our current social climate. People want to be told what to think and what to believe based on emotional biases. They don’t want to research for themselves. Also, we are all just so busy. Busier than ever before. Some folks simply don’t have the time to sit and read for knowledge or enjoyment.
Amazing video. One of the students in my class ask the same question from professor and he had no clue.
I’m jealous that you have this relationship with literature. I read more than the average person but I’ve never felt that feeling before. It feels more like entertainment entertainment aspect or a requirement for me understanding something.
I’m not a teacher, but here is something that I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. Our brains weren’t made to consume the amount of information that we are exposed to on our digital devices. Our brains need a break from overconsumption of information. The practice of slowing down and reading an entire book is a brain-healthy practice. Not only is it important to engage in reading and processing literature as a human being, but it actually helps us to think more clearly. It’s a practice of slowing down and being in the moment. And it’s not just reading. We’ve become a society of impatient people rushing around and wanting everything instantaneously.
to your point, i think there's a chance a lot of young people do not see any reason to complete longer texts if there is no tangible outcome for them. with so many things pulling at your attention (social media, part time jobs since life is getting more expensive, hustle culture, etc) it can be difficult to justify to yourself investing several hours into a book if the value proposition is not there (for the reader). additionally, i think society in general is in a doom spiral towards maximum efficiency and productivity (in ways i think are very surface level) and the richness reading longer texts brings to a reader's life cannot be quantified by this productivity machine and so it gets cut out of the picture. to society, there is no money to be made by engaging in something fully, so why would you?
One of my first semesters in college, I took an art class that . . . did not deliver as advertised. The teacher ignored the class title and spent every assignment proving that art can be anything, made with anything, no limits, no standards, no meat, just go crazy with new mediums and see what comes out of it.
This actively broke down my deeply-rooted "why" for not just visual art, but also literary art. The destructive effect was worsened and intensified by how little time I had to do my homework; each of my classes acted like it was my full-time job, and I actually did have a part-time job, so I had to rush to spit out the experimental garbage my teacher asked for just to complete assignments. Fork out money for "high-brow" materials I didn't know what to do with and would never use again, because the entire class peer-pressured me into it while pretending not to. It was horrible, and I actively buckled under the weight.
Then, the university had their dance teams perform at a weekly devotional. Dance is perhaps the art form I have least engagement with, but the theme of the show was "Art is . . .", and each dance was unique in style, tone, and content. It hit me how expressive and varied the dances were, always emphasizing different aspects of the artistic genre to communicate different things.
I left that devotional having had an epiphany. Art is a medium for human communication. We can use whatever we want, to say whatever we want, however we want, to whomever we want. But the core function of art is still human communication. The skill to craft that artwork is related and can be an expressive performance all its own. But art and the humanities exist for humans to communicate with each other in a richer and deeper way than straightforward communication can on its own.
I decided from that moment on that every creative output I made for any of my classes would mean something to me. No more shallow meeting of the requirements, checking the boxes and that's it. I would say something that mattered, at the very least, to me. My homework would engage my mind and soul in one way or another.
But I still had very little time on my hands. So for the final class project, I started with the assignment description and brainstormed what types of messages would naturally fit with those parameters, how I could use those opportunities to say something meaningful to me, and problem-solved a workflow that would allow me to make it at the needed quality but quickly and easily. This became my standard workflow for the rest of my college experience.
The result was a slideshow of colorful images that each gave a unique context to the same meaningless symbol. When I presented it in class, I stated that the symbol stands in for whatever the reality of Heaven and Deity is --- because there is some answer to that question --- and each image represents a different human perspective on that singular answer.
It blew my class away. Even more so when I explained that my only equipment were Microsoft PowerPoint and my computer's default photo editor. No Photoshop. Just my parents' camera. Some books to hold up the assignment-mandated piece of shelving plastic that the teacher provided. A spray bottle with some water in it. And the assignment-mandated bits of other assignments from that semester, to provide the "truth of God" image.
Amazing how I subverted their implicit expectations by following their stated ones. I'm really glad the art project helped some of them in personal ways, as well. One classmate made a point of thanking me after class for it.
Excellent video. You got a new subscriber.