that's ABSOLUTELY why i went to grad school; my degree certainly isn't necessary for what I'm doing now but i didn't have a job and i wanted something to distinguish me from the other applicants the next time around. also i wanted to feel like i was better than other people.

So YOU are the problem!

I talked about the rock snob myth a while back, and I say good riddance to the concept. It never seems to occur to anyone that spending all that time hunting down stuff can be simply for pure personal pleasure, not something to lord over others. I've always freely lended or given my music, and made mixes for anyone who wants it. It's rare enough to find anyone who gives a rat's ass about hearing Pere Ubu or Can as it is. Am I wrong or are more people here like this?

i know that this article has a playful tone, but does anyone else feel like we've been beseiged with mentions of how the paradigm of music or reading appreciation has changed and we're worse off for it? i had a massive argument with a friend of mine who's a newspaper editor where he was complaining about how the very nature of reading has changed and people don't learn from long, in-depth articles in papers or worse, from books (edit- and he considered this situation to be a shortcoming and a fault in modern life). my perspective was that people read now in short bursts and are more informed now in a more shallow way about many topics, whereas in the past perhaps they would get more information about fewer topics, but that that in itself didn't imply a travesty in reading culture, but in fact was a success and an increase in society's literacy. granted i'd been drinking when i made this argument.

I agree.. I love it when people actually LISTEN to what I give them or talk about. When you really turn someone onto a band, I dont know, that feeling is not matched by much else.

Facts are crap.

Now, before you go and jump down my throat (Radcliffe's oral tradition aside), let me expound.

The ability to regurgitate facts is worthless. It's the ability to draw conclusion from an assembly of facts that matters. It's the difference between "reading" and "reading comprehension".

Information clusters won't help us think. They won't help us engage in discourse.

Also, no one seems to mention the steady deterioration in our writing skills. How can you expect people to maintain reading skills when the source (i.e. writing) is going down the crapper?

Facts are crap.

Facts are simple and facts are straight
Facts are lazy and facts are late
Facts all come with points of view
Facts don't do what I want them to
Facts just twist the truth around
Facts are living turned inside out
Facts are getting the best of them
Facts are nothing on the face of things

Facts don't stain the furniture
Facts go out and slam the door
Facts are written all over your face
Facts continue to change their shape

It's the difference between "reading" and "reading comprehension".

There was a line/there was a formula
Sharp as a knife/facts cut a hole in us
...
I'm still waiting...
I'm still waiting...