Reading

I’ve been a reader for as long as I have memory.

This isn’t to claim some superhuman status. Clearly, there was a time in my life when I couldn’t read.

But, reading or being read to as a small child is present in many of my vivid recollections. There are photographs of my mother reading to me on a window seat in our early home in Edinboro, Pennsylvania. I remember my father reading American Heritage articles to me as a boy. My grandmother was an elementary school teacher who read to all of her grandchildren regularly.

Reading, however, is – or, rather, can be – a gateway drug. No. In fact, it should be a gateway drug.

The act of reading should lead to thinking. And thinking should lead to writing. And all of it is communication. So, whether the thinking leads to writing or speaking or art or anything else, it’s all a link in the chain that starts with reading and writing.

As a reader, I, personally, became a writer. This obviously isn’t a universal pattern among readers. One would hope that at least thinking results from reading. But it’s neither a requirement nor guarantee. The same is true of writing as it relates to reading.

Some writing isn’t necessarily based upon thought. As the cave art of Europe, Indonesia, Australia and around the world demonstrates, humans sometimes simply choose to communicate the world around them. Before it became an obscene profession, modern humans called this “journalism.”

When the cave paintings of prehistory were etched, there was no culture attempting to censor their creator. The artists were free to depict a deer in the manner they interpreted a deer. Sure. It’s possible that someone named Og mumbled “It not look like deer to me.” But, critics are a natural outgrowth of thought. And they should be.

What is recent and alien and damaging to the freedom that reading and writing and thought require to survive is an uncritical condemnation of ideas.

Having an opinion is not a right. It’s like a navel. We all have them from birth on various subjects.

But simply having an opinion doesn’t mean the opinion has merit. The painting may not look like a deer to Og (“Grog, the antlers are perfect! How can you say it doesn’t look like a deer?!”), but unless we can logically and reasonably explain our dislike (“”Cuz me think legs too skinny; and deers’ necks look like giraffe’s,”), then our ideas about the writing – or art – themselves are invalid (“Me not know . . . me just no like it.”)

That’s not an idea. It’s an opinion

All ideas are not equal. But they cannot be dismissed simply on the merit of “we don’t like it.” This is a hallmark of modern thinking. Simply dismissing or prohibiting discussion of a particular thought or idea based upon the preference of an individual or group is antithetical to freedom.

Ideas must be heard, discussed, defended and reasoned over. Then, after that process, ideas can be dismissed. And, the process and discussions can be written, saving humans from repeating said process and allowing the species and its development to continue more readily.

Humans must zealously protect the freedom to write, read and think openly. Some ideas, if unchallenged, can have painful outcomes. But that pain is mild and incomparable to the pain an idea can produce once it is banished from discussion.

The light of truth and discussion cause darkness and deceit to fall away.