I don’t know a lot of greater pleasures than discovering a new author, a new thought, a new text. And even more, to share your own discoveries to others. Lend, offer, recommend a book, talk about it after, read some parts out loud together. What a joy…
And today, more than ever, reading and making people read are major issues, in our civilisations of impatience and of images. Of impatient images.
For near 3000 years, thought make the world move forward and is transmitted by books. No matter what their material forms are, they are these first nomad objects, so peculiar, that convey ideas, that keep track of stories told by men and women in the evening. It is books that shape the frame of reflection, of the active, creative and critical thinking.
No thinking, no innovation, no progress without books. No books without writing. And without reading and writing instruction.
In the most advanced ancient civilisations, the requirement to know how to read and how to write, was at the heart of familial duty and State duty. It is this requirement in particular that structured, since 2500 years ago, the Jewish identity and that allowed this people’s survival, in spite of its bimillennial dispersion; and from it, the monotheism radiation did ensue. It is also this requirement that structured, since the same period of time, the Chinese imperial society, and that have made a meritocracy reign, from which immense thinkers and several religions came out.
Today, knowing how to read remains the key to power. Giving texts to read remains the key to influence. Reading is a weapon given by adults to new generations, without fearing that these generations emancipate themselves from their elders. Reading is a means given by power in order to fight it. It shouldn’t be feared: only civilisations that were brave enough, that had this trust towards their youths survive today.
Don’t believe that this is an acquired progress today: more than 800 million of adults around the world can’t read, two-third of them are women and three-quarters of them live in 15 countries including Bangladesh, Brazil, China, India and Nigeria. In France, 7% of adults are illiterate. And lots of people, who have learned how to read, don’t read and forget how to, because of a lack of practice.
Reading is a real work, far more demanding than watching videos. In the social media era, where reading should remain a condition for belonging to the group, it is, more and more, expressed only by pictures or basic symbols, and not by texts.
At the planet scale: it is urgent to ensure that school teaches reading to children and all adults. To ensure that reading is not limited to texts pleasing to powers, religious or secular. It is the mother of battles.
In France, reading is a too much neglected issue; it should be an analytical grid for many reforms. For instance, inclusive writing is an aberration, from that point of view like from many more, because it makes the reading practice even more difficult. Likewise, school curricula reforms should have as a priority to make people discover the pleasure of reading history, sciences or literature texts. Finally, families do have an essential role upon this, by suggesting books to read, by reading together, out loud or silently.
We then discover than books are the most wonderful topic of conversation.