sardine Barthes
If it wasn’t for the pleasure or the violent climax that jouissance implies? Why would anyone write? Why would anyone read? Why would anyone do anything? Humans’ existence and survival rests on pleasure. The pleasure in reading includes the skips and rhythms of the reading and re-reading to stretch out that moment of sublime and violent awakening. It enables our freedom.
I wonder at serious adults who say they read word for word. The child who reads word for word barely comprehends what is read. What are these serious adult readers missing? Everything. It is a form of intentional dyslexia to deaden the senses and the intellect.
However, the current educational system seems to be promoting this dyslexic type of reading with the FCATS and other tests. The system of teaching for the tests, regurgitation, and reading for the accelerated reading points is not an education. The graduates are nothing more than educated idiots and slaves.
Yet there is independence for those who accidentally awaken the jouissance. They can realize what isn’t taught, what is denied, what is more.
posted by blogsquatch @ 10:30 AM
1 Comments:
"The graduates are nothing more than educated idiots and slaves."
Great observation. I agree that our public school are enforcing this sort of "dyslexic reading." It seems to be part of our postmodern culture's desire to consume everything as quickly as possible (the children being rushed through the learning process), and then turn around and regurgitate it without any refelction (the arbitrary tests they enforce without considering the different needs of each school/child). I also agree, that it is a small miracle when people do find that pleasure in the text. It allows them to imagine, to become enriched, and to have a moment of pleasure without succumbing to some other mind-numbing choices of entertainment. However, I think it is equally important to pull that pleasure apart and know where it comes from, why it exists. Not to DESTROY the fun entirely, but just so that we can be more aware of how we interpret things, process information, and use it in our relation to one another. By looking critically at that pleasure, we are able to see the pleasure in discovering what is not said- Machery's gap and all that. So, i don't know what my point is really other than if we want to shake those "idiots and slaves" out of the educational system maybe a good way would be to make them understand that what they are actually reading isn't the be all end all to life, that there is more in the space, more that general education doesn't tell us about reading/writing. I guess i feel that to really know the pleasure of reading we first have to know how it functions (or at least try to).
Now, i've rambled too much on your post!
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