The man who can read and remember and ponder the big realities is a man keyed to survival of the species.
— John D. MacDonald
Worse than threatening democracy, illiterates threaten our species.
A fictional character aboard a houseboat in Fort Lauderdale concluded that 34 years ago.
In 1985, the National Endowment for the Arts asked the prolific paperback mystery writer John D. MacDonald ("John D" to his millions of fans) to contribute an essay promoting literacy.
John D described the 30-page result, Reading for Survival, as a "bad-tempered mouse of 7,200 words" that portrayed "the terrible isolation of the non-reader, his life without meaning because he cannot comprehend the world in which he lives."
The essay depicts a deskside conversation between John D's two best-known fictional characters, the freelance crimefighter Travis McGee and his brainy sidekick Ludweg Meyer.
Meyer does most of the talking. He theorizes that the human brain evolved into a warehouse of memories, because memories allowed prehistoric man to cope with the environment.
McGee responds, “Man learned and remembered everything he had to know about survival in his world. Then he invented so many tricks and tools, he had to invent writing. More stuff got written down than any man could possibly remember. Or use. Books are artificial memory. And it’s there when you want it. But for just surviving, you don’t need the books. Not any more.”
Meyer counters, no; books are essential.
"The world is huge and monstrously complicated," he tells McGee. "Like our ancestors of fifty thousand years ago, if we—as a species rather than an individual—are uniformed, or careless, or indifferent to the facts, then survival as a species is in serious doubt.”
McGee doubts anyone could possibly comprehend today's complex environment.
"How do we relate to reality?" Meyer replies. "How do we begin to comprehend it? By using that same marvelous brain our ancestor used. By the exercise of memory. How do we take stock of these memories? By reading, Travis. Reading!"
Non-readers, Meyer continues, threaten the whole human species' survival. They're flat-footed and incompetent and, worse, give birth to more non-readers, who "become a new generation of illiterates, of victims."
Non-readers' ignorance creates immanent risks, too, Meyer adds, because it makes them gullible. "Their basic lack of education, of reading, of being able to comprehend the great truths of reality has left empty places in their heads, into which great mischief has crept."
"And you have a cure for all this, of course," McGee teases.
Meyer's only solution (true to form) is to drink away their sorrows. "Let us trudge back toward home, and stop at the bar at the Seaview for something tall and cold, with rum in it," he says.
Flash forward three decades and our need to drink rum is only stronger.
The Pew Research Center says the population of non-readers in America is growing. Right now, one in four Americans doesn't read a single book—or even a part of a book— annually. That's up from one in five 10 years ago. No surprise, most of these non-readers are poorly educated and broke.
But not all.
A lot of educated and well-off Americans have become non-readers, too, says Adam Garfinkle in National Affairs. Thanks to their "always on" digital devices, they are unable to read analytically. They have, for all purposes, given up "deep reading."
"Deep reading has in large part informed our development as humans, in ways both physiological and cultural," Garfinkle says.
"If you do not deep read, you do not cultivate a capacity to think, imagine, and create; you therefore may not realize that anything more satisfying than a video game even exists. Fully immerse yourself in digital 'life,' and timelines will flatten into unconnected dots, rendering a person present-oriented and unable to either remember or plan well. That permanently 'zoned out' person will become easy prey for the next demagogue with an attractive promise and a mesmerizing spectacle."
John D. was right—more than he dreamed. Our nation of one-time readers is going full zombie.
As a species, we may be doomed.
