response3

I feel that the main purpose of Birkerts’s “The Owl Has Flow,” is to inquire upon how the availability of text in modern era has changed the way that humanity digests what is read. He uses, in contrast, a time when literature was not readily available and not everyone knew how to read. During this time the few amount of books people had available then were read and re-read in order to find deeper meaning in each text, and to truly experience every detail. Birkerts argues that people no longer spend the time to devour the intimate aspects of each text they encounter because people are continuously being bombarded with new features to read, to internalize and digest. He suggests that this lack of regard to text diminishes our opportunities to learn more about the world around us, and that by thinking horizontally, or skimming the surface, we lose our ability to internalize messages and discover their hidden meaning. At one point in his essay Birkets addresses that, “Newspapers, magazines, brochures, advertisements, and labels surround us everywhere- surround us, indeed, to the point of having turned our waking environment into a palimpsest of text to be read, glanced at, or ignored.” Through this he recognizes that the overwhelming presence of text has desensitized most people from engaging themselves.

I disagree with the proposition that modern people do not engage themselves mentally while reading. It is true that in contrast to the past, we posses more opportunity to read and digest text. But instead of critically analyzing each advertisement, billboard, and commercial that we come across people have learned to disregard those that provide no further meaning then to publicize a product and instead, direct that guided attention to more meaningful engaging literature. The one aspect of Birkets that I do agree with is that people assume there is no depth in the fleeting billboards and magazine covers because there is so many that contain none. People do not dig to find meaning in the thousands of commercials the flash by our eyes everyday, and instead resort to believe or disregarding their repetitive messages. Most of the text that people do ignore describes something of our culture as Americans and what we find interesting. It is these subtle details that contribute to how Americans as a whole are viewed. The commercial billboards and magazine covers display the ideas of our culture, weight loss, fast food, and money. These concepts surround us from every direction, but our culture has become numb to their presence and no longer interacts, instead we accept them and leave them for visitors and outsiders to observe and critique. As Birkets describes, it is important to internalize our surroundings and internalize the messages they send, only through doing this are we able to study and understand the culture we live in.