Reading Response #3

Sven Birkert’s “The Owl has flown” asserts that the way people today read and think has changed from the past. Informing us that people, who do read and think, do not do it as passionately and as in depth as people in the past have done. Robert Darnton’s claim supports this, per se, by giving us an example of the ways that it used to be, how our ancestors had done. “…We may think of it as a straightforward process of lifting information from a page; but if we considered it further, we would agree that information must be sifted, sorted, and interpreted.” (Robert Darnton, The Kiss of Lamourette). Sven Birkert has asserted that the people of this generation no longer do these processes; they skim across the text and no longer take the words into depth and meaning. No longer do we feel and comprehend the “soul and truth” behind the text. In my opinion, I see the understanding of the text and the comprehending behind the text as gaining knowledge of the subject. And the knowledge gained through the extensive understanding of many texts and their authors, as well as the processes and habits of human nature, are the steps towards wisdom. “Wisdom: the knowing not of facts but of the truths about human nature and the processes of life.” I believe that this is a good quote that supports Birkert’s statements in his writing, informing that people today need not only to grasp the information that the text implores, but to go farther into the importance of the writer and his or her opinions. By offering this information, he hopes to influence new readers and writers to understand how we can change our habits today to have a better understanding of how our forefathers used to see the value and meaning of text and information. How we revere them as wise and having a greater understanding of the world and its conflicts. In my opinion, the older generations are wiser because they’re style of writing and reading and thinking have much differed then our own, how they appreciated the information that they were given and strived to understand it better. Our ways and our methods today have diminished and deluded our style, influencing us to not extensively go into a topic, but to finish it as quick as possible and move on to the next page. His explanation of wisdom plays a key part in his writing because it lies at the tail end of his paper, giving us a better understanding of his intentions and influencing us to think deeper of how we interpret his writing. Allowing us to recall our style and furthermore change our thought process after being explained how we have changed. And after we have seen this, we have had our own little taste at wisdom, now comprehending his style and the truth and soul behind his words. This helped me understand what he had intended us to learn, and even possibly, rewarding us with the prospect of becoming enlightened through the extensive thought behind the meaning of the words. This sort of reminded me of Clive Thompson’s paper, but only in the sense of reflecting on the youth and ages today. While Clive Thompson disagrees with the decline of style of writing in the age today, and Sven Birkert implies that today’s age of writing has gone into a decline and no longer does the people show their knowledge of writing as people in the past would’ve done. But I believe that if Sven Birkert were to discuss these ideas with Clive Thompson, I believe Birkert would agree and disagree only because it reflects on how the youth today writes… Agreeing that the style of writing has changed to accommodate the writing materials the world has today, but disagreeing because the feeling and the soul behind the writing is no longer tapped into, no longer the meanings of the writer comprehended.