FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Number 10, Part 5.4
Number 10, Part 5.4
(NEW SERIES—2007)
(Read, Print, or Download in >PDF>> Format)
(Read, Print, or Download in >PDF>> Format)
..........·..........·..........·..........·..........·..........·
A LETTER OF LAMENTATION
TO AMERICA, PART FIVE
ADDENDUM NUMBER THREE
A LETTER OF LAMENTATION
TO AMERICA, PART FIVE
ADDENDUM NUMBER THREE
..........·..........·..........·..........·..........·..........·..........·..........·..........·..........·..........·..........·..........·..........·..........·
Paragraph from A Nation Gone Blind,
Chapter Two ("The Death of Literary Thinking
in America"), pp. 160-161
..........But enough; lamentation will bring nothing back. The fact is that literary thinking can't be recovered—nor can the benefits it's capable of bringing—until such time as we once again recognize thought and feeling not just for what they are but also what they're not. As things stand now—in America, in academia, in the mass media, in the arts—feeling is doing the work of thought, and doing it very badly indeed. Thought, meanwhile, is hobbled and hamstrung by the cords of feeling it's bound up in, with the result that most of the time thinking can hardly be said to be taking place at all. John R. Searle, straight-faced and without irony, wrote well over a decade ago in The New York Review of Books that "One of the most depressing things about educated people today is that so few of them, even among professional intellectuals, are able to follow the steps of a simple logical argument."
Copyright © 2006 Eric Larsen, from A Nation Gone Blind: America in an Age of Simplification and Deceit. Reprinted by permission of Shoemaker & Hoard, Publishers.
Chapter Two ("The Death of Literary Thinking
in America"), pp. 160-161
..........But enough; lamentation will bring nothing back. The fact is that literary thinking can't be recovered—nor can the benefits it's capable of bringing—until such time as we once again recognize thought and feeling not just for what they are but also what they're not. As things stand now—in America, in academia, in the mass media, in the arts—feeling is doing the work of thought, and doing it very badly indeed. Thought, meanwhile, is hobbled and hamstrung by the cords of feeling it's bound up in, with the result that most of the time thinking can hardly be said to be taking place at all. John R. Searle, straight-faced and without irony, wrote well over a decade ago in The New York Review of Books that "One of the most depressing things about educated people today is that so few of them, even among professional intellectuals, are able to follow the steps of a simple logical argument."
Copyright © 2006 Eric Larsen, from A Nation Gone Blind: America in an Age of Simplification and Deceit. Reprinted by permission of Shoemaker & Hoard, Publishers.
(Use your browser's "Back" button to find
your place again in "Letter of Lamention,
Part Five," or else CLICK HERE
your place again in "Letter of Lamention,
Part Five," or else CLICK HERE