Gaaah, no!
Apr. 10th, 2010 08:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silverflight8So, I was reading SBTB (which is usually really funny as well as astute) and went to read the comments on this entry.
Paraphrase of original article: Sarah argues that the reading of Great Literature isn't the only way that children will be educated, and that the supposed dearth of teenaged readers is not the end of the world. And I am all with that. Her article is not the object of this rant.
The comments, though, were quite as patronizing as the people who shouted that all teens are dumb because they don't read.
Excuse me, but some people read classics, and they like them. Some people would run screaming from the idea of plowing through Crime and Punishment. There are people in between. Why, thank you for telling me what this demographic likes to read! Oh, so now we're supposed to all hate classics? We're all supposed to be capable of reading only contemporary literature (that is, in essence, what the "at least they're reading!" arguments are all about?) We all love the same types of books, because we're one age group? I'm so glad you've found a way to classify a whole distinct population! I'm sure the marketing people and others who try to classify populations will be delighted.
Personally, I felt the absolute [insert expletive here, here, and here] of Racefail 09 to be one of the most enlightening things I've ever read through--and that was, assuredly, absolute filth at times. YOU CAN READ AWFUL BOOKS AND STILL GLEAN KNOWLEDGE, or whatever the [insert extra expletives here as well] OMG pplz not reading folks think we need to know.
tl;dr number one: People, even teenagers, are distinct. Please remember this before you tell me that all they like to read is fiction or whatever the heck you're saying now.
And bonus rant:
Classics is almost like a category. Treat it like a genre where books have been put because lots of people see something in them. Greatness? I don't know.
But reading a few of one genre (under duress by your school) and then declaring the whole genre is shot and they're all junk--hm, isn't that what they say about evaluating romance novels by checking two of them out at the library? Hello, commenter? (I could be wrong, but I have not yet met someone who's read enough "classics" as defined by the general public who could be justified in saying that "most classics are [adjective for horrible here]
tl;dr number two: What you label as "classics" are, truth be known, not all the same thing, and they differ in quality. Don't bash the whole group based on a few. *also double standards, but that's another matter*
P.S. To one particular commenter--as far as I know, Sherlock Holmes is a classic.
Paraphrase of original article: Sarah argues that the reading of Great Literature isn't the only way that children will be educated, and that the supposed dearth of teenaged readers is not the end of the world. And I am all with that. Her article is not the object of this rant.
The comments, though, were quite as patronizing as the people who shouted that all teens are dumb because they don't read.
Excuse me, but some people read classics, and they like them. Some people would run screaming from the idea of plowing through Crime and Punishment. There are people in between. Why, thank you for telling me what this demographic likes to read! Oh, so now we're supposed to all hate classics? We're all supposed to be capable of reading only contemporary literature (that is, in essence, what the "at least they're reading!" arguments are all about?) We all love the same types of books, because we're one age group? I'm so glad you've found a way to classify a whole distinct population! I'm sure the marketing people and others who try to classify populations will be delighted.
Personally, I felt the absolute [insert expletive here, here, and here] of Racefail 09 to be one of the most enlightening things I've ever read through--and that was, assuredly, absolute filth at times. YOU CAN READ AWFUL BOOKS AND STILL GLEAN KNOWLEDGE, or whatever the [insert extra expletives here as well] OMG pplz not reading folks think we need to know.
tl;dr number one: People, even teenagers, are distinct. Please remember this before you tell me that all they like to read is fiction or whatever the heck you're saying now.
And bonus rant:
Classics is almost like a category. Treat it like a genre where books have been put because lots of people see something in them. Greatness? I don't know.
But reading a few of one genre (under duress by your school) and then declaring the whole genre is shot and they're all junk--hm, isn't that what they say about evaluating romance novels by checking two of them out at the library? Hello, commenter? (I could be wrong, but I have not yet met someone who's read enough "classics" as defined by the general public who could be justified in saying that "most classics are [adjective for horrible here]
tl;dr number two: What you label as "classics" are, truth be known, not all the same thing, and they differ in quality. Don't bash the whole group based on a few. *also double standards, but that's another matter*
P.S. To one particular commenter--as far as I know, Sherlock Holmes is a classic.
