Reading

Reading

by Kent Thalman

Published: February the twenty-fourth

of the year two thousand and fifteen

This is an interesting thing which you have come upon. First off, it is in fact a pamphlet, and not simply a paper. You may recall that once upon a time this was a common form by which articles were published if not in the newspaper. These days however, if something important has happened, then all you have to do is watch the news or listen to the radio (if you happen to be old). But perhaps something that we hardly account for anymore is if what we want to know isn't an important event or a bit of information that will simply make life easier. What if we were asked to read and consider a very important idea that someone has taken the time to write down?

"Oh!" you may conclude, "you mean like reading an email." True, writing and reading emails is a great form of communication, but how is this different? Usually emails are for the sake of fast communication, and a single reading after which the document can be discarded or lost in cyberspace. But great documents of thought and literature were and are meant to be read, kept, revisited, and carefully considered. But given that this must be such a difficult task for many of our young folks these days, I suppose I will write my thoughts in the way that you will read them anyway, so as to not waste time and energy.

"What difference does a pamphlet really make?" Well, your very life may be totally shaped by the things that have been written down and then read in pamphlets! I ask you to recall the man Thomas Payne. Sound familiar? You have probably learned of or even read his 1776 pamphlet titled, "Common Sense." This was Thomas' ideas concerning the importance of declaring independence from England, which at the time, most people living in the American colonies were still on the fence about. So this is significant. By recording and distributing his ideas, the whole world was changed. But he wrote more that just that famous article. There were several. John Adams said of Payne, "I know not whether any man in the world has had more influence on its inhabitants or affairs for the last thirty years than Tom Paine." Today, it has been written of him as follows: "In an age of political pamphleteering, Paine had become the most influential pamphleteer of all. His writings remain classic statements of the egalitarian, democratic faith of the Age of Revolution" (http://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/thomas-paine). In other words, everything that you and I enjoy about being Americans may not have even been possible were it not for the written thoughts of one person.

At this point in the pamphlet, you may be very interested. But you may also be pressed for time. Likely is the chance that you did not fully anticipate reading this whole pamphlet at this exact moment. You want to think that you will come back and finish it when you have time, but we both know how that works. This will just be placed somewhere important, like at the bottom of a backpack or briefcase, or on a bookshelf between two books where it can't be seen, and never will be again. But I'm being dramatic, aren't I? Some of you will stick around because you do have the time. Great! By now, you may have been so impressed that you underlined a couple of things in the pamphlet. That is one novel thing about paper which you can't do in an email!

Anyway, I digress. Many others have used this form of communication to help transform history, thought, and all of us. There are too many to mention, but one champion of literary thought that comes to mind is J.R.R. Tolkien. His name makes you immediately remember Middle Earth, The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings books. Admittedly, you probably thought first of the movies, but maybe that is unfair. After writing The Hobbit, which was a book intended for an audience of young folks, he began work on his trilogy of books mentioned above. The sequel to The Hobbit, however was proving to be much longer and in depth than was previously anticipated, which at the time was a problem. Mr. Tolkien knew that the popular thought of his time was that fairy stories were meant exclusively for children. And what he was then writing was not exactly a childrens' book. Therefore, he determined to first put at ease the minds of the publishers, who would no doubt have their reservations concerning the idea of publishing a series of fairy stories that adults were expected to buy. What resulted was an article or thought titled, "On Fairy Stories," which was a landmark in literary, religious, and fantastic thought. Literary, because it paved the way for what is now an explosion of fantasy novels and movies. Religious, because in this article Tolkien consolidates Christian thinking and fantasy reading. And "fantastic" because of the genre-shattering effects that his works had and still have on all things fantasy.

So what's the point? I guess it's that these things called pamphlets do make a big difference things called pamphlets do make a big difference things called pamphlets do make a big difference things called pamphlets do make a big difference oh no... you're falling asleep. That's fine I guess. You've made it most of the way, and you've probably gotten a pretty good idea of what I'm trying to say anyway. You are getting the idea of what reading pamphlets is all about.

Since from here, you'll probably just skim to the end, then I will try to hit the main points for you.

...over here I'll say something about T.S. Elliot's article, "Tradition and the Individual Talent." Just read it.

...then again, if you're skimming now, you'll never make it through that one.

... this part is boring...

...booooring...

You know, reading used to be a pretty significant experience. We probably don't think that it is as important because based on what we're reading, it really isn't.

We sort of know that the blogs and websites that we read are mostly garbage anyway. "The sources are probably all bunk too," (famous person, 1997).

...so we just skim, peruse, and then quote what we remember from it all as if defending our deepest religious beliefs.

By now, you're confident that you get the idea, so you skip to the end. Now you can write that paper, or at least say that you read this. Congratulations!