Campbell McNicol
English 101 – Assignment 4
Not a cousin of the papyrus leaf?
A crisis for Birketts, but fine by me.
The Webster Dictionary vaguely defines the word, “literature” as, “writings in which expression and form, in connection with ideas of permanent and universal interest, are characteristic or essential features.” In a more targeted, and by my taste, close-minded definition, Birketts would most likely offer a definition entailing words on a page, or some sort of venue akin to papyrus, bound together into a single book. According to Birketts, literature is not only an endangered commodity, but is also something which should be enjoyed entirely in private. According to him, one should view these words alone, so as to fully intake the glory that is the act of reading; and so as to not interact with another living soul. If one were to point Birketts to an article on a website for example, he would by no means classify those words as legitimate forms of literature, but frankly, he would be making a terrible mistake in doing so. Specifically, the essay, “Is Google Making us Stupid?” is innately a piece of literature, both by Webster’s definition in that it offers ideas of interest, and also by my own standards and by the standards of the Webster Dictionary.
Throughout this essay, I will break down Birketts’ entire argument towards literature, and undermine his reasoning that reading is a private activity. In place of his close minded and weak arguments, I will replace them with my own points of view and an overall better sense of what it means to actively read something according to someone from today’s generation. I bring up this point because I find it to be one of the most blatant weak points in Birketts’ definition of writing and of literature. When it comes down to it, the world, and the words within it, and the venues which they are displayed on have changed and evolved – something which Birketts has failed to do.
Although Birketts would disagree with me here, the act of reading was never intended to be done privately. Take hieroglyphics for example, one of the earliest forms of writing possible – these symbols conveyed messages which were meant to aid communication when it was not able to be verbally spoken. This example offers some of the earliest proof that reading and writing were, from their point of creation, intended to be a social event. The idea of a social approach to reading can even be found today within academia, as was not so much the case when Birketts was going through school. Throughout my education, English classes were almost entirely conversational, in which students were encouraged to speak up, brainstorm together and to bounce ideas off of one another. Several months ago, I begged a friend of mine to read One flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest about a week after I had in a last – ditch effort to figure out what on earth was going on with Kesey’s constant reference to the “fog” among other vague statements which seemed to fly over my head. Luckily for me, my friend agreed to read it, and I bombarded him with questions after he did so. He and I spent a long time talking about that book and eventually, we felt as though we were able to figure out most of our questions. My experience with this book was defined by the fact that I had someone else to read it with me. Being able to toss out ideas and bounce theories off of each other made all of the difference and entirely enhanced my feelings towards the book itself. Through this, the actual act of reading is improved significantly. This is the exact point of my initial argument of why an online article is absolutely, 100% legitimate, even though Birketts would condemn it with no signs of mercy.
This article, “Is Google Making us Stupid?” was written by a journalist, who’s job is to convey the news, touch on topics in current events, and basically convey information to the general public. This article, does just that — it provides people with information to be shared with people. It is here where Birketts may run into some problems with his own argument. Does the fact that this article was written with the intent to be read, shared, and discussed among the masses make it illegitimate? Because he would probably say yes to this, the same thing can then be said about books; aren’t they intended to be read, shared and discussed among numerous people? The answer is a resounding yes – making Birketts’ first argument disappointingly hollow.
Birketts also finds a quarrel with the general location of said text. The fact that these words are located on an electronic screen suddenly sends his vantage point into a tail spin of chaos. To Birketts, as soon as words appear on a screen – something he vehemently condemns throughout his book – they become drastically different, and can by no means be considered as pieces of literature anymore. Again, I find him hugely at fault here, and unreasonably close minded. If anything, the fact that they are on a screen, and on the World Wide Web, make them almost twice as legitimate as they would be if they were located in a book. Allow me to break this down into my sometimes hard to follow logic:
By my standards, reading is indeed something which should be thought provoking and should stir emotions. Because of standards like that, it should also be something which becomes social as people share their ideas, their reactions and their feelings about whatever it is that they have just read. An article about a controversial topic to begin with will be thought provoking by nature, but when it is displayed on an online venue, it is offered up as a topic of discussion to whomever my stumble across those words. From there, they can then join their fellow readers in discussion and post a comment on the article, or if they’re feeling really ambitious that day, they can blog about it by means of some other online site. This chain of events – reading something, mentally marinating over it and digesting it, and then turning around and joining discussion on it, is what reading to me is all about. That is exactly what the author is generally trying to accomplish. He or she is intending to start conversation with their words. That’s how they know that they have done a good job in their work.
It is also at this point where I see the generation gap between me and Birketts playing a key role. I’ve grown up in the age of technology, a time when all of the information I could ever care to access is literally at my fingertips through the internet. Because I have been exposed to this as a basic, bear necessity fact of life, I am comfortable with and appreciative towards the availability of text. Birketts on the other hand, has sensed the overall communal switch to online word processing. He even goes so far as to say, “A change is upon us — nothing could be clearer.” (118.) Unfortunately, he has not only apparently taken offense to it, but has also turned his back on it without giving technology a chance to grow on him, and without making an effort to open his eyes to all that it has made possible. Because reading and writing are so seemingly sacred to Birketts, he should be happy that things like blogs and web based articles exist, as they are always there, always accessible, and being used by everyone. It is a shame that feels so intruded upon by the internet, and by machines in general, as when it comes down it, all they have done, at the absolute worst, is made those texts which Birketts holds so dear to his heart even more accessible and readily available to him.
In my opinion, one of the biggest holes within Birketts crusade against machines can be found within his argument of what he calls “vertical reading.” Birketts says, “Print also posits a time axis; the turning of pages, not to mention the vertical descent down the page, is a forward – moving succession, with earlier contents at every point serving as ground for what follows. Moreover, the printed material is static – it is the reader, not the book, that moves forward.” (122.) First of all, things like hyperlinks which are embedded within a text, bring, in my mind, his concept of vertical reading to an all new level. As Birketts would like, the reader is very active when devouring some type of online text. Take the article for example. As the reader moves down the page (the same way they would when reading a book) they can choose to read further and into different topics through those hyperlinks. This makes the process of reading ultimately a never ending process should the reader choose to just keep “clicking through” those webpages.
Birketts would undoubtedly take stabs at my redefining of his term, whining that the reader is not fully intaking the text if he or she keeps “clicking through” a score of pages, but that is exactly where my point of positivity lies. If anything, it is better to be able to read “vertically” by my definition because you can cover a huge range of topics, and learn dozens of new things about all sorts of areas, rather than being constricted to simply the words on the pages of a book. The ability to “click through” pages makes an online article such as this one not only more interesting, but more thought provoking and more educational (if used properly) because the reader can view so many different pages within such a short amount of time and with minimal effort.
Overall, a web based article is without a doubt a proper, and legitimate form of literature, as is almost anything with some sort of context and some point of message, no matter where it happens to be located. Specifically though, for the purpose of my more narrow attack of Birketts‘ definition of reading, an online article fits Webster’s definition, and the standards which I laid out based on my views. It is thought provoking, can involve numerous people to partake in, and can provide insight on numerous different topics the way that a simple book cannot do. So what if Birketts gets cold feet as soon as words that could just as easily be printed in a news paper appear on a screen instead? The bottom line is that an article possesses every quality necessary to facilitate it into the realm of legitimate literature.
