The New Dark Ages, Possibly
When I was a younger teacher – that is, a much younger teacher – I spent much time and enjoyed reading the polemical arguments of the American writer, Neil Postman. In the event, you haven’t read Mr. Postman, add him to your list. While he died almost a quarter of a century ago, you will find, regrettably, that his preoccupation with the detrimental influence of media technologies on cognition, debate, and democracy remain relevant to life today. Indeed, I fear Mr. Postman, were he alive, would be more than a little distressed, albeit unsurprised, to witness the seemingly deleterious impact that immersive digital technologies are having on many of us.
It was the mention – the idolization, actually – of Postman in a podcast that I first listened to in this year’s northern hemisphere summer that really caught my ear. The podcast discussion had as ‘expert witness’, the journalist, James Marriott. You may be familiar with Mr. Marriott who made a bit of splash with his Substack essay, which, without much regard for subtlety, he titled ‘The dawn of the post-literate society: And the end of civilisation’. Bombastic perhaps, but headlines of this kind tend to get your attention (in a world where getting your attention is where it’s at and, let’s face it, no longer easy to do). In the podcast, Mr. Marriott expanded his thesis and, obviously, plugged his (then) upcoming book, The New Dark Ages.
I should say that on first listening to Marriot, I found him a little too self-righteous, if somewhat endearing. Nonetheless, his broader point – ditch your phone and pick up a good book – was going to find not objection from me. And, it’s reasonable to admit, we all like to have someone champion a cause that we are already won over to. I did, in any event, eagerly anticipate his book. But, before I could read it, I made the error of reading a caustic review of Marriot’s first-born book in The Guardian (that wellspring of Paper 1 texts through the years). Not entirely put off, I started to listen to the audiobook (narrated by Mr. Marriot) in my car on the way to work. I got, alas, to the turn-off for the motorway, twelve minutes from home, when I decided that what I really wanted to do was to listen to The Lark Ascending.
Now, you don’t have to take the word of Anthony Cummins in The Guardian. And, I am no better authority. If you would like to read the book – some of the statistics, if they are to be believed, are startling – then read the book. The fact that many young people and adults alike are doom scrolling on ‘smart’ phones rather than immersively reading 19th century novels is a surprise to no one, and it doesn’t require a few hundred pages to make the point. Even the most energising and proselytising of teachers among us is unlikely to convince their 17-year-old IB students that reading Tess of the d’Ubervilles under the bedclothes with a torch at 1am beats TikTok. Please write to correct me if you know otherwise.
This said, it does not mean that the game is up. Reading is not dead. We are the faithful remnant. We know that, at least for the period our students are with us, we have the opportunity to spend a little time reading good books together.
On our site, we have ready-to-use materials that we hope will encourage your students to read with attention to detail and, who knows, perhaps a little gusto:
David and Tim