# 48: Just Read, Dear Scholars!
Story behind the Passage
Tomorrow, Nov 20, Germany is going to celebrate the “Day of Reading” (Tag des Vorlesens). This is a day that seeks to raise awareness of the importance of reading, particularly reading to children. As someone who writes books across all genres and for different audiences, I, of course, support this message. What I want to talk about, however, is the need for reading among the supposedly “learned.”
I had a real heureka moment today about this. And I will forever be thankful to a friend of mine who made the pieces of the puzzle fall into place. He said a simple thing:
“People just do not read anymore.”
This might sound like a commonplace lamentation about the state of society today. But the real explosiveness of the statement only unfolds when you learn that we were talking about junior scholars, especially in the humanities. The humanities, just for those of you who have no clear picture about the field, comprise subjects such as literary studies, languages, and cultural studies. That means: Fields that are based on reading texts as their primary source of knowledge! So, why would we need to urge them to read (more)?
Well, it all depends on the kinds of books.
I have experienced this lack of willingness or motivation to read many times. Whenever I give a talk or do a workshop, I usually bring a bag of books with me. In these books, you find the material that I talk about in my presentation — and much more, of course. I always mention that these books can be found on a table somewhere in the room and I encourage people to take a look at them during the break or after the talk. But my experience is always the same: When I collect the books again to put them away after the event, I find them in exactly the place where I had put them at the beginning. And I hardly ever see anybody looking at them.
“Well, maybe these books are just not interesting to the audience,” you might suppose now.
Sure, could be, but why do they hire me to give a talk about this stuff? Why would people pay money — a lot more money than a book would cost — to have me talk about something that they could easily learn by just reading one of these books? Yes, of course, I have personal experience and partly my own research to add. Still, 80% of what can help them can be found in various books and other online materials already. Why would people spend 1000 EUR and invest six hours of their time if they can learn even more by paying 9,90 EUR and investing 2–3 hours of reading?
You know the answer?
Yes, because they are stupid!
Sorry, but there is no other conclusion. The more interesting story behind this is how they ended up being that stupid. After all, the math behind this is pretty simple, right? Every child knows that 10 Euros are a lot less than 1000. But that thinking only happens if you have to watch your money closely and if you have learned to think pragmatically. What I mean by pragmatically, at least in this short piece today, is: the shortest path is usually the quickest and most efficient, assuming that the aspired goal can realistically be achieved. And this takes us to Pooh.
I have chosen The Tao of Pooh today because a fable fits in quite well with the “Day of Reading” and the target group of children. However, the book is damn serious when it comes to my issue of teaching grown-ups. I cannot remember exactly how I became aware of the book. I think, it was recommended in some other book I read concerning personality development. It basically translates the major idea of the famous Tao Te King by Lato-tze for a Western audience. And translation is a good starting point for getting deeper into my topic of making people from the academy engage with literature that would help them a lot — if they ever read it.
My Learnings
“Far from reflecting the Taoist ideal of wholeness and independence, this incomplete and unbalanced creature divides all kinds of abstract things into little categories and compartments, while remaining rather helpless and disorganized in daily life.” What Hoff is describing here about the “Academician” and “Absentminded Professor” refers to the neglect of the path towards enlightenment that the original Dao describes. It is really brilliant how the book plays on this dichotomy by framing these spiritual and humanistic topics with the cute fable about Pooh and his friends. But the problem that is being described is dead serious.
When I am saying that academics, including students and junior scholars, do not read practical management and self-development books, I am exactly referring to this ignorance of a holistic mindset, coupled with the seeming inability to deal with issues of “daily life” in a pragmatic way. And, yes, I know I am being very harsh here but I have to because we can already witness where this educational drawback is taking us. People are simply not able to look beyond their tiny “categories and compartments.” They are not able to look just one inch to the left and to the right while walking their mono-disciplinary path.
“Well, how can you say something like this? These (young) scholars are so smart and so busy. There are good reasons why they do not read ‘self-help books’ and guides on practical management and leadership skills.”
Is this what you are thinking now, dear reader?
I do not buy it.
How can supposedly educated people who are aspiring a career in research and teaching be so ignorant? Yes, they are so busy doing other stuff. And yes, this is not primarily their “fault.” The university is enforcing this compartmentalized worldview with the wrong incentives (keyword: publish or perish). But you know what? How do you ever want to step in front of your students (later) and convince them that true learning comes from intrinsic motivation if your actions completely oppose this dogma? If you are acting like a marionette, following the self-destructive rules that the higher education system is imposing on you?
When my friend mentioned this finding to me today, I immediately thought of so many things that I had unintentionally done “wrong” during my time as a university student and young scholar. But, when I think of it now, it turns out that my mishaps were actually damn right, at least from my perspective. Whenever I wrote a paper on something, I searched the online library catalogue for books and articles that looked interesting for my topic. And then I went to all the different libraries on campus to find the books and copy the material.
Why am I saying libraries in the plural?
Well, every university usually has one main library and several smaller departmental libraries that have specific literature for the respective field. Subjects that are part of the same faculty are usually grouped in the same library. I know that most of this will become outdated at a certain point when we have everything available electronically. Still, in my days, my research usually led me to several libraries. Not only did I find my books in Political Science and Sociology, I found them in Anthropology, Philosophy, Linguistics, Ethnography, and, of course, in Media Studies and American Studies — my main subjects.
Oooops, did I just mention my majors at the very end? How can that happen?
You know what, I never cared that much. Yes, I did always start with the original background information in my classes and seminar readers. But in my own research, I followed my urge to learn as much as possible about my topic. And, you might be surprised now, the information was never that different. Sometimes they had the very same books in different libraries. And quite often, the really interesting stuff for my arguments could be found in books that I would never have found in my own field. In any case, it was absolutely normal for me to do my research like this. After all, I had a thesis that I wanted to support and I needed to find the information — the data — that was necessary for this.
But that was not how one does it in a research environment with strict subject borders that run counter to any idea of “wholeness” — even in a supposedly big-picture environment such as the humanities. And the full magnitude of this is only unfolding, I think. This is why the comment by my friend today caused such a “WOW” moment for me. It is exactly this silo thinking which is largely responsible for the fact that humanities scholars do not touch my books on practical management — even if they have been written for a general audience.
Wooops, general audience, wrong keyword again.
“Scholars” and “soon-to-be” scholars do not touch “public science” books. I have no idea who they think these books have been written for but not for them. They are too smart for this kind of stuff — they think. Or the opposite holds true and they think they will not understand books from other fields — could be. Whatever it is that they think — they end up NOT READING and NOT KNOWING about the practical and theoretical wisdom contained in these books.
Or do you think that any of my colleagues from American Studies has ever read The Tao of Pooh? Or The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge. or Peter Drucker and Henry Mintzberg? Or Lasswell and Merton? Or any of the other books that I am discussing on my blog, in my talks, and partly in my academic writings?
You know what, in a society in which scholars have no clue about how to put principles “into practice,” as Hoff writes above, something is terribly wrong. And we will increasingly witness the devastating results of this. In such a society, teachers and professors end up being highly inefficient and not innovative. And innovation is the primary aim of research. Innovation pushes a society forward. It alleviates poverty and illnesses.
Yes, innovation needs to be discussed critically and ethically. But that does not change the fact that we need it. It is the primary achievement of modern society post-Enligthenment. If we actively destroy our innovation potential or we witness how it falls apart without doing anything about it, we can go back to the status of homo sapiens as hunter and gatherer (look at how members of the right-wing parties behave in the German Parliament these days — it is an indication of this already).
I am pretty sure that the Bologna Process, which severely limits the deep multi-disciplinary education, is one reason for this. We are educating a generation of small-picture thinkers because we, the “teachers,” are already severely limited in our capacity to read and process information from different fields. In other words: The students are increasingly losing their ability to think for themselves and to fill knowledge gaps based on their own research.
But Bologna is not the only reason for this. I think, money also plays an immense role here. This deserves a blog entry of its own. Just in general, however, I can say that the impulse to throw money out the window is a typical trait of people who have enough or even more than enough money. A person who has suffered from financial shortage and saves every dime has a natural “do it yourself” mentality. That is self-evident. Whatever is in your power, you do it yourself. You only ask for help — also help that needs to be paid for — if you really, really, really see no other way.
Do I sound like a dinosaur now? Throwing around with good old virtues?
I do not give a shit. I am from a non-academic family background. I spent most of the money I ever earned on travel and books. I learned almost every sport and skill from my parents or from watching people. A huge part of my general education comes from public television. The people in my neighborhood have usually never set foot on a university campus.
But you know what?
I can read books.
Even books that have been written for other academic disciplines or no academics at all.
Is it that difficult to read a book on management or networking as a humanities scholar?
Is it so difficult to spend 10 EUR instead of a 1000 EUR?
I just watched an interview with an old lady from a retirement home the other day. She was asked about her experience during Covid. Due to her age, she has lived through World War II, of course, and several other hardships. Yes, she finds it difficult that there are so many restrictions and that she cannot visit her children and grandchildren, she said. But when asked about her general take on how the young generation violates many social distancing rules by partying, she had a clear perspective which I also use as my conclusion today:
“They are simply too well-off.”
Reflection Questions
1) How many books do you read per year?
2) How do you choose your readings?
3) What was the last training/workshop you attended? Search online for a book that might cover the same topic, order it, read it, and compare the quantity and quality of what you learned from the book with what you learned in the training session.