In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse

This is a future possibility but it has not yet come to pass, and we can still avoid it. We are not yet adrift in a sea of epistemological relativism where everyone has their own truth, and no objective truth can be discerned. We don't need to succumb to this kind of nihilism. Truth and objective reality are still discernable and approachable. Philosophical objections to the Truly objective viewpoint are not the limiting factor.

"Everything is just a narrative" is the cry of those who don't have truth on their side. The current state of mass media is the result of their cries becoming louder. We don't have to go along with it.

> excellent grades

have nothing to do with interiority -- the main thrust of the article

In 1494, Johannes Trithemius printed De laude scriptorum, "In Praise of Scribes" assailing the development of the printing press. The same argument was made, but from the perspective of the manual scribe, that a printer doesn't understand a work as well as a scribe does, as the speed of reproduction doesn't have the same intent that a person lovingly copying by hand does.

Similarly, Plato made the same argument aginst books themselves in the Phaedrus (circa 370BC): "If men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls; they will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks."

And I'm sure in the murky recesses of human evolution, a curmudgeonly man felt the same about speech itself: "How will child know own breath when choked by breath of others?"

And I'm also certain in the near future, when ergodic literature has replaced the solitary linear author, there will be nostalgia for the same: "When everyone chooses for themselves which path the large language storyteller takes, we deprive ourselves of the common ground that is the unchanging epub. As Chesterton wrote one hundred and fifty years ago, 'Chaos is dull; because in chaos the train might indeed go anywhere, to Baker Street, or to Bagdad. But man is a magician, and his whole magic is in this, that he does say Victoria, and lo! it is Victoria.' We might write today 'In chaos, the Tolkien model might take Frodo to Erebor, or the Southron Lands, but the author is a magician, and his whole magic is in this, that he writes Mordor, and lo! It is Mordor.'"

In short, Cronus eats his children.

It makes me kinda sad. Videogames need voice acting now to become successful because nobody has the reading or concentration skills. When I was a child I taught myself English by playing Planescape Torment.