A new renaissance is on the horizon; a new generation leading the next great awakening. The written word is dead. Reading is a thing of the past; the dark ages. Knowledge has been replaced with mindless bliss. All the reading necessary in today’s society is a 140 character synopsis, as to not require too much of our attention or thought. For, what idea needs elaboration? What thought could be worth more than only a couple of sentences could? After all, writing down an idea could never change the world. What pull could something like a book have on society? Just look at “Mien Kampf”. It did not persuade an entire nation to commit genocide, did it? “Common Sense” did not ignite a revolution. “The jungle” did not change how the government regulates food forever. If those books could not change the course of the modern world, then how could any?
That is why I propose, we do away with the written word, forever. Kill all the authors, that’s Shakespeare, right? Society can do without reading and writing. No more English classes, no more textbooks, or plays, or poetry. Sounds like a world I want to live in.
We will not have to deal with any of those pesky emotions poetry always seems to bring up. Twitter can just be videos. No one reads Instagram captions anyway. We can just speak anything with any importance. All we need is a few good sound bites, future generations do not need to know anything about us. I mean, which books from the past have taught us anything about ourselves or the consequences of our actions? Surely not “Tom Sawyer”, or “Of Mice and Men”. Hemingway should just be remembered as a drunk hunter, who cares what he has to say about war. The 20s would be remembered the same without Gatsby, for sure. Leo would be Leo, without Fitzgerald.
Twenty-One percent of adults in the U.S. read below a 5th grade level, what a wonderful trend! Even better, 32 million adults in America cannot read at all, that is 14 percent. Nineteen percent of high school graduates can’t read; it’s not even necessary to get a diploma. We are on the right track, but we can always do better. More people should stop reading. Even those with the ability to, should quit. In fact reading should be banned. It is detrimental to a harmonious society. You do not have to live with all of the negative effects of reading, such as increased social and emotional awareness, a broadened perspective and engaged imagination. Together we can rid the world of this epidemic, and build the foundation of a new, enlightened society.
What do reading and writing really do for society anyway? There are other forms of entertainment. We have music; rappers can just freestyle. Lil Wayne hasn’t written down his rhymes since ‘03, how hard could it be? Quentin Tarantino is just really good with a camera, what did writing have to do with “Pulp Fiction”, or “The Hateful Eight”? Those “Hunger Games” and “Divergent” movies were good enough; we do not need books for that. We have reality TV, and let’s not forget the lessons taught to us by our new founding fathers, the Kardashians.
Do not even start with Newspapers. Twitter is for real news. The only purpose newspapers serve is giving old men crossword puzzles for Sunday morning. Our president is raging a war on fake news. The solution: Get rid of news all together. Who needs the New York Times, or the Washington Post? Just ask Nixon.