My magnum opus - a unified field theory of why the post-literate society is a catastrophe for civilisation as we know it https://t.co/V0xxKeS8MJ

I really enjoyed this conversation with Novara Media about the dawn of the post-literate society and why (in my view) we need liberal elites https://t.co/rFxfEm8s3I

The fact the internet means stuff like this is only ever a few clicks away almost makes the post-literate society and the end of democracy worth it. WH Auden reading Death's Echo https://t.co/8RLABiq7aN

I really enjoyed this conversation with Novara Media about the dawn of the post-literate society and why (in my view) we need liberal elites https://t.co/rFxfEm8s3I

Does the smart phone explain the flattening of the Flynn Effect (I.Q. scores > 3 points/decade for a century)? @j_amesmarriott thinks so & I agree. Not only my students, even scholars I know no longer read whole books, or read only reviews, e.g.: Scientists who think

This is more than just four quarters. It’s every tailgate, every chant, every moment. It’s fuel that goes beyond the field. This is CELSIUS! LIVE. FIT. GO.

@j_amesmarriott Can I (humbly) suggest Autumn Journal by Louis MacNeice? A rare example of a long poem that’s worth reading from beginning to end. Beautiful passages & has something substantial to say.

James has put forward some very strong contenders, but *this* is actually the great autumn poem of the twentieth century:

Though like all Dylan Thomas slightly cursed with dabs of pseudo-poetic bullshit. Parables of sunlight? Twice-told fields of infancy??

I love his reading of it: https://t.co/Rh5lT4Qg6p

My other candidate for greatest twentieth century autumn poem is Dylan Thomas's Poem in October. I think it's almost the best thing he ever wrote. So much amazing stuff in just the first two stanzas. https://t.co/5Epn4YFDZ7

One of the most profound and atmospheric autumn poems of all time. And perhaps the greatest written in the twentieth century. The Laurel Axe by Geoffrey Hill.

"So in this hour of crisis and dismay What better than your strict and adult pen Can warn us from the colours and the consolations, The showy arid works..."

From possibly my favourite of his poems, To A Writer On His Birthday: https://t.co/ZUzhNOy2qS

I increasingly think these are some of the greatest lines Auden ever wrote. I can never read them without chills: "And all sway forward on the dangerous flood Of history that never sleeps or dies, And, held one moment, burns the hand."

The Last Enlightenment Man (that would be me). Profile in AirMail.

David Foster Wallace amazingly prescient here on the addictive quality of TV. A reminder that future generations may not look back on the smartphone as a break in cultural history but rather on the era c. 1960-2030 as a continuous screen revolution. https://t.co/viUlSlgKmY

Beware the novel problems of our success | James Marriott reflects insightfully and originally on the paradoxes of the current moment, taking off from our interview 2 weeks ago.

"The problems of the 21st century are overwhelmingly the problems of success. We struggle with the chaotic superabundance of information; our ancestors were haunted by ignorance. We have to cope with the tragic consequences of humanity’s too-efficient exploitation of the planet’s

For all the pessimism around at the moment, in the context of history we are living in an unimaginable golden age. Many of the problems of the C21st are the unprecedented problems of success - ironically, that is what makes them so difficult to solve https://t.co/mOPa2iOu3J

For all the pessimism around at the moment, in the context of history we are living in an unimaginable golden age. Many of the problems of the C21st are the unprecedented problems of success - ironically, that is what makes them so difficult to solve https://t.co/mOPa2iOu3J

The most important piece I’ve read for quite some time. How the death of literacy is changing our lives and our politics