how american hustle culture is killing literacy
We're worried about a post-literacy world because we're living in a post-boredom one.
It probably won't come as a shock to you that Americans are reading less and less. Hell, you more than likely knew that. Books sit on shelves unread. Newsletters such as this one are being subscribed to in great numbers, but very few are being read consistently. Romance, erotica, sci-fi, and fantasy incorporating heavy doses of sex and violence are the only real bright spots in the book market thanks to fanfiction and BookTok. If it wasn't for audio books, which yes, I do count, the statistics would be even more dismal.
When I started making relatively consistent videos about a year and a half ago, I used to get a few complaints from some viewers that my writing was perfectly fine and they would much rather read one of my posts. My reply was that my videos got anywhere between ten and a hundred times the traffic of my articles. As a – and it pains me to type this – content creator, if my choice is to write a long article that might get 10,000 views or a short form video condensing these ideas and get over 154,000 views... Well, the answer is pretty obvious.
Fast forward to today and even those rare objections are gone. If anything, short video essays are trying to become my primary medium. Partially, this is what a lot of people seem to want, and partially because 15 minutes is about as much as I tend to tolerate hearing myself talk. Personal hangup, I know, but it does affect the kind of content I end up making in the end. But this is a serious problem as pointed out in an essay in The Atlantic, representative of many on this subject.
No matter how much I try, I simply cannot pack the same breadth and depth into the arguments I advance in a 6,000 word longfrom article in a three minute video. Even an eight minute video on the origins of the Singularitarian movement could only do so much. With an extremely short runway, it's really difficult to engage the mind. Instead of facilitating curiosity and discovery, a lot of writers are becoming influencers relying on the visual and written equivalents of fast food to lure people in.
This also contributes to the literacy crisis in which we find ourselves. People can read the words just fine, but they can't connect with the ideas, or think critically, or detect subtle sarcasm, or realize that just because an author wrote something jarring doesn't mean they agree with it. Reading books and doing our own research instead of being delivered ready made answers on a platter is how we grapple with big, complex ideas. If we refuse to put in the work, our ability to do that will either atrophy or never develop.
It's a vicious cycle. People don't read and see no value in it. They then don't read to their kids, which means it takes them more effort to learn how to read and they're less likely to enjoy it and develop their imaginations and critical thinking skills, so they also don't read by themselves and to their kids, and so on, and so forth. The worst case end result is a populace with the ability to read words, but not reason what these words say. We don't even need to project far into the future to see it at work.
Orwell's "newspeak" from 1984 forms the backbone of the MAGA movement in which conservative men are taught that they need to be protector alphas for their families and communities, and supporting federal agents and police threatening, harassing, or escalating encounters to grim and violent ends is one way to do that because they're "backing the enforcement of law and order." Submission to, and cheerleading of, state-sanctioned violence is being effectively branded as rugged, independent strength by "standing up for what's right."
We can see the same mechanics in the war with Iran, which exists in the same state of quantum indeterminacy as an electron, both a resounding victory and stalemate that must continue to be fought. Despite being poorly planned, hastily undertaken, and totally unnecessary, the MAGA right insisted that somehow, the United States and Iran have actually been at war for 40 years. You know, just how we've always been at war with Eastasia.
While conservative memes decry 1984 as a dire warning about the dangers and evils of Marxism and communism, the book actually borrows from the Russian dystopian novel We by Yevgeny Zamiatin, and takes it to the terrifying conclusion of how propaganda by a deafeningly loud and persistent government can warp minds given enough time and doubt, gaslighting us into going along with the flimsiest of justifications and the most absurd of slogans.
Newspeak's goal isn't to make people believe or think something, its goal is to turn the minds of citizens to suggestible mush in which words both mean nothing and are also critically important, every belief must be defended to the bitter end, but also irrelevant if Big Brother says it no longer matters. The world is loud, and confusing, and scary, so Big Brother is there to help make sense of it. You just gotta trust him. He wants those bothersome questions in your mind to quiet down and be replaced with certainty at all times. Isn't that a lot better than constant doubt?
Now, these all seem like an interesting and important ideas to debate. Why do we – and by we I specifically mean Americans – keep avoiding it? By contrast, Europeans read far more and in many European cultures trying to avoid talking politics and philosophy is considered cowardly or an admission that you lack education and curiosity, not as a sign of politeness. Yes, of course, this is not a universal constant and depends on the exact audience, but the point stands.
Obviously, this is a cultural difference, and I don't just mean avoiding questions that might break strict decorum at the dinner table. No, Americans are busy people, and I don't mean that as a compliment. American hustle culture carpet bombs us with work, obligations, and endless demands to multitask. At every step, we end up flooded with overwhelming demands and bids for attention, and if we have our noses buried in a book not called 1,001 Ways To Optimize Value For The Shareholders, we're lazy bums not pulling our weight.
Reading fiction takes contemplation, imagination, and slowing down. It keeps us from constantly and incessantly doing something work or consumption related, and we hear admonishments about not being "productive with our time" on an hourly basis. Sitting down to read a novel is for weak beta lazy soyboy cucks. Starting six side hustles while listening to three hour long manosphere podcasts, leaving only to hit the gym where you keep listening to grindmaxx? Now that's for freedom loving, patriotic red, white, and blue sigma giga chads.
Worse yet, social media and Google keep trying to push us into a world where we are just handed answers on demand, often wrong, incomplete, or manipulative answers, instead of being asked to spend some time actually educating ourselves and figuring out the best answers on our own. Their goal is to move us right along to the next ad or transaction, not for us to ruminate on things. It makes them more money this way.
While we can refuse, push back, and take the time, we often don't because, again, we're busy busy busy because... we're supposed to be, or else we're just lazy bums watching life pass us by. Which is the real crux of the matter. When your life becomes nothing but work, survival, and anxiety, it leaves no room for moments of imagination, boredom, or daydreaming that make us reach for a book.
We don't spend enough time reading and enjoying our alone thinking time to then pass that joy on to our kids, which means they treat reading as a simple mechanical activity they must navigate for tests and to-do lists, instead of a way to broaden their horizons and engage with or develop new ideas.
Sure, it's not optimal for the shareholder class if we start claiming our time back and not being chronically busy for the sake of being busy, but unless they ban all books, the worst they can do is continue what they're doing now: hyping hustle bros whose job is to make you feel guilty for not spending your every waking moment being busy and stressed.
And the best thing American culture could do for its future and sanity is to take one long, disgusted look at those abrasive, invasive performative hustle bros and tell them in unison: "can you just shut the fuck up and get lost?"
