Reading and Progress

In his book, Reading Between the Lines, Gene Edward Veith insists that reading books is critical to a thriving culture. Television and movies, Veith claims, if enjoyed to excess, will turn us into an image-dominated society. The Internet, we know, is a medium that's scanned and browsed, but not studied. "Only reading," Veith says, "cultivates a sustained attention span, an active imagination, a capacity for logical analysis and critical thinking, and a rich inner life." Each of these, the author concludes, is essential to a free people.

To illustrate, Veith explains that missionaries to non-literate cultures often begin by mastering the language. They create a system of writing, translate the Bible and teach people how to read it. Light suddenly shines in the darkness. Lives are transformed, vision is expanded, perspective is widened, understanding -- of life and experience -- is deepened. Other books trickle into the culture, from literature, science, arts, history.... Through newspapers and magazines people discover better healtcare practices, new economic systems and business techniques; they discover the need for personal and social change. They, like Christians from the era of the Reformation, empowered first by Bible reading, develop scientific technology, economic growth, and democratic institutions.

When ideas can be written down, Veith says, they are, in effect, stored permanently. We're no longer constrained by the limits of our own minds or imaginations. We begin to build on what others have written. It is by reading books that progress becomes possible.

Simply compare non-literate cultures with those that read. Non-literate peoples "tend to exist in static, unchanging societies, whereas literate societies tend toward rapid change and technological growth."

Universal education, predicated on literacy has, Veith tells us, broken class systems, given individual citizens the ability to exercise political power, pooled great minds-leading to achievement in every field. It is no exaggeration, he concludes, that reading has shaped our civilization more than any other factor.

Which, given the current state of reading in our society, leads to the question: What's the difference between a culture that can't read, and one that chooses not to?

Richard Doster is the editor of byFaith, the magazine of the Presbyterian Church in America. He is also the author of two novels, Safe at Home (March 2008) and Crossing the Lines (2009), both published by David C. Cook Publishing. 

Sources that prompted these thoughts:

Veith, Gene Edward. Reading Between the Lines: A Christian Guide to Literature. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1990