We aren’t living in a culture of literacy anymore, we’re back in oral culture. From that lens, everything makes sense: short attention spans, virality, popularity, who makes money, even populist politics all follow orality Lets study the oral rules https://t.co/cGHyz5U7Ka
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Books are great, they can change your life. But people are not reading books anymore. They are ways for an author to get speaking fees or appear on podcasts to get famous. They are business cards of the intellectual class
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There is a complete collapse of literacy happening right now. Replaced by short form video, tweets, podcasts, IG, youtube, tiktok, newsletters, etc. everyone can feel whats going on
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The good news is, we are just returning to a previous era an era that has dominated history. We're just new to it because we haven't seen it. but there are rules to this era. rules we can study
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Study the rules and you can also understand what exactly is happening how shorter attention spans are part of oral culture, how memetic devices get created, how we learn to package ideas so they can be transmitted without the written text.
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I didn't know what to make of this kind of WH communication. Dismissed it as unserious, undegnified, until I read @PaulSkallas about the return of oral tradition. Makes sense.
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Another vignette from the post-literate society. Reading books used to be something a lot people did for fun - now it is a specialist skill that has to be taught by universities
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