July 13, 2009 - Al Gore Was Correct

In “The Assault on Reason,” Al Gore talked about how Americans were reading less. He said that instead of people becoming informed of noteworthy events by reading the news, they watched the news on TV. And instead of being entertained by reading written works of interest, they watch TV and play video games. As a result, Americans are less intelligent than they were in the past, and their thought patterns are less sophisticated. In essence, Americans are becoming stupid.

When I completed “The Corrupting of the Redeemer,” I sent copies to a sizable group of people to gauge their opinions. They didn’t have to pay for the book; all I wanted from them was to hear their honest opinions. That was nearly 1 year ago. Since then, only a small portion of the people who were given complimentary copies have read the book, and none of them had anything negative to say about it. (I know that their feedback was honest because they were truly impressed by its complexity, and how deep it is.)

I consider it unfortunate that people have bypassed the opportunity to read a book that will be considered one of the most controversial, thought-provoking, and enlightening literary works of our era. But I guess that I should expect that in a society in which people are impressed by entertainment that caters to their laziness, rather than to their intellectual curiosity. Writers are often the people whose thoughts create significant events in world history, or change the trajectory of societies through revolution. And until the majority of people learn to love reading, writers will remain an underappreciated class of the world community.