Maiden Mother Matriarch with Louise Perry The post-literate society | Maiden Mother Matriarch 210
James Marriott, columnist and author of The New Dark Ages, explores the decline of reading and its cultural fallout. He discusses how literacy reshapes the brain and enables complex argument. Conversation covers novels and empathy, TV and smartphones displacing sustained reading, social media’s town-square dynamics, and a growing split between deep readers and algorithm-driven consumers.
01:15:01
Literacy Produces Analytical Thinking
- Marriott says literacy produces more analytical, critical thinking and powers of abstraction compared with oral or audiovisual modes.
- He connects this to media theorists (McLuhan, Ong) and recent neuroscience vindicating a literate/non-literate cognitive divide.
Preliterate Peoples Treated Writing As Magic
- Marriott recounts preliterate peoples' fascination with writing as magical, making squiggles in the dust and writing spells they believed had power.
- He describes Pacific cargo-cult rituals that included written squiggles as attempts to summon Western goods.
Literacy's Short Lived Golden Age
- Marriott traces mass literacy's brief peak to late 19th and early 20th centuries driven by compulsory education, printing and Protestantism.
- He argues cinema, radio and TV then displaced print as the central public medium within decades.
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Intro
00:00 • 2min
How reading reorganises the brain
02:03 • 7min
Magical attitudes toward writing
09:21 • 2min
Where writing emerged globally
11:16 • 54sec
When mass literacy peaked
12:10 • 5min
Novels, empathy, and social change
17:03 • 6min
Ad break
23:05 • 2min
Writing versus speech: complexity and rigor
24:39 • 1min
Challenges of explaining in speech
25:44 • 4min
Students' declining reading comprehension
29:27 • 3min
Television's historical impact on reading
32:37 • 4min
Isolation, community, and media shifts
36:37 • 14min
Social media as the modern town square
50:11 • 5min
Post-literacy and the return of superstition
55:26 • 10min
Keeping reading habits amid distractions
01:04:59 • 6min
Information bifurcation and elite reading
01:11:29 • 3min
Will tech destroy memory and attention?
01:14:05 • 3min
Outro
01:17:26 • 57sec
#2943
• Mentioned in 22 episodes
Orality and Literacy
The Technologizing of the Word
Walter Ong
Walter Ong's "Orality and Literacy" explores the profound influence of oral and written communication on thought and culture.
Ong argues that the shift from oral to literate cultures fundamentally reshaped human consciousness, impacting memory, perception, and the very structure of thought.
He contrasts the characteristics of oral cultures, emphasizing their communal nature and reliance on memory, with the individualistic and analytical tendencies fostered by literacy.
The book examines how different modes of communication shape our understanding of the world and ourselves.
Ong's work has had a lasting impact on fields such as rhetoric, anthropology, and media studies, influencing scholars like Marshall McLuhan.
His insights continue to be relevant in understanding the impact of new technologies on human cognition and social interaction.
#3900
• Mentioned in 17 episodes
Little Dorrit
Adam Leverton
Marco PEDULLA
Charles Dickens
Mary Sebag-Montefiore
Adam EVE
The novel follows the story of Amy Dorrit, known as Little Dorrit, who is born and raised in the Marshalsea debtors' prison in London.
Her father, William Dorrit, is imprisoned for debt and becomes known as the 'Father of the Marshalsea'.
The story explores themes of poverty, societal injustice, and the constraints of the prison system.
It also delves into the lives of other characters, including Arthur Clennam, who becomes involved in the Dorrit family's affairs.
The novel satirizes the British class system and the inefficiencies of the government, particularly through the fictional 'Circumlocution Office'.
As the Dorrits' fortune changes dramatically, the novel examines the impact of wealth and social status on individuals and society.
#539
• Mentioned in 80 episodes
The WEIRDest People in the World
Joseph Patrick Henrich
Korey Jackson
Joseph Henrich
In this book, Joseph Henrich explores how Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) populations developed their unique psychological profiles.
He argues that changes in family structures, marriage, and religion, particularly influenced by the Roman Catholic Church, led to the emergence of WEIRD psychology.
This psychology is characterized by individualism, self-obsession, control-orientation, nonconformity, and analytical thinking, which contrast with the more group-focused and shame-driven cultures of non-Western societies.
Henrich uses research from anthropology, psychology, economics, and evolutionary biology to explain how these psychological differences contributed to the industrial revolution and the global expansion of Europe.
#113
• Mentioned in 222 episodes
Ulysses
James Joyce
Ulysses is a groundbreaking and complex modernist novel that chronicles the experiences of three Dubliners over a single day.
The novel is loosely based on Homer's epic poem 'The Odyssey', with Leopold Bloom paralleling Odysseus, Stephen Dedalus paralleling Telemachus, and Molly Bloom paralleling Penelope.
It explores themes such as antisemitism, human sexuality, British rule in Ireland, Catholicism, and Irish nationalism.
The novel is known for its innovative use of language and narrative techniques, including stream-of-consciousness and multiple literary styles.
It captures the essence of early 20th-century Dublin, providing a detailed snapshot of the city's social, political, and cultural landscape.
#67526
Inventing Human Rights
A History
Lynn Hunt
Lynn Hunt examina los orígenes de los derechos humanos modernos y sostiene que no surgieron solo de la razón filosófica, sino también de nuevos sentimientos de empatía e igualdad.
El libro conecta la abolición de la tortura, la novela epistolar, el arte y las declaraciones de derechos de las revoluciones estadounidense y francesa para explicar cómo los derechos humanos llegaron a parecer naturales y universales.
#405
• Mentioned in 99 episodes
Uncle Tom's cabin
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Published in 1852, 'Uncle Tom’s Cabin' is a seminal work by Harriet Beecher Stowe that depicts the harsh realities of slavery in the United States.
The novel follows the story of Uncle Tom, a dignified and religious enslaved man, and Eliza, a fugitive slave, among other characters.
It highlights the cruelty and injustices of the slave system and the emotional toll on enslaved individuals and their families.
The book was a massive success, selling over 300,000 copies in its first year and becoming the second-best-selling book of the 19th century after the Bible.
It played a significant role in fueling the abolitionist cause and is credited with influencing public opinion on slavery.
#227
• Mentioned in 147 episodes
Middlemarch
George Eliot
Middlemarch, written by George Eliot, is a novel that delves into the complexities of provincial life in 19th-century England.
The story revolves around the intersecting lives of its characters, particularly Dorothea Brooke and Dr. Tertius Lydgate, as they navigate marriage, vocation, and social class.
Eliot critiques the conventional romance narratives of her time by portraying marriage as a complex and often problematic institution.
The novel also explores themes of idealism, self-interest, hypocrisy, and the constraints on women's lives.
Set in the fictional town of Middlemarch between 1829 and 1832, the novel incorporates historical events such as the Great Reform Act of 1832 and early developments in medicine.
Eliot's realistic portrayal of ordinary human life, with its quiet tragedies and small triumphs, has made 'Middlemarch' a masterpiece of English literature.
#507
• Mentioned in 84 episodes
Bleak House
Charles Dickens
Bleak House, published in 1852-1853, is a novel by Charles Dickens that revolves around the Jarndyce family and their entanglement in the interminable lawsuit of Jarndyce and Jarndyce.
The story highlights the inefficiencies and injustices of the English Court of Chancery, as well as themes of family secrets, blackmail, murder, and social critique.
The novel follows Esther Summerson, who becomes the guardian of two other wards, Richard Carstone and Ada Clare, and their lives as they navigate the complexities of the lawsuit and personal secrets, particularly those surrounding Lady Dedlock and her past.
The novel is known for its vivid portrayal of Victorian England and its critique of various social and legal institutions of the time.
#247
• Mentioned in 139 episodes
The better angels of our nature
Why Violence Has Declined
Steven Pinker
In this book, Steven Pinker presents a detailed argument that violence has significantly decreased over the course of human history.
He uses extensive data and statistical analysis to demonstrate this decline in various domains, including military conflict, homicide, genocide, torture, and the treatment of children, homosexuals, animals, and racial and ethnic minorities.
Pinker identifies four key human motivations – empathy, self-control, the moral sense, and reason – as the 'better angels' that have oriented humans away from violence and towards cooperation and altruism.
He also discusses historical forces such as the rise of the state (which he terms 'Leviathan'), the spread of commerce, the growth of feminist values, and the expansion of cosmopolitanism, which have contributed to this decline in violence.
#6707
• Mentioned in 10 episodes
The uses of literacy
Richard Hoggart
#4696
• Mentioned in 14 episodes
The New Dark Ages
The Death of Reading and the Dawn of the Post-Literate Society
James Marriott
James Marriott sostiene que el aumento de la alfabetización impulsó la civilización moderna y que su retroceso está empujando a la sociedad hacia una era posliteraria.
A partir de la historia, la teoría de los medios y la sociología, el libro defiende la lectura y la escritura como pilares de la innovación, el pensamiento complejo y la democracia.
Samuel Johnson was one of his history's great readers. He read constantly: while he walked, while he ate, while he socialised. He insisted that one ought to read for five hours a day, and to read on every subject one could. This was newly possible for eighteenth century people, who suddenly had access to affordable books.
But Johnson understood that he was unusual. "People in general do not willingly read, if they can have anything else to amuse them," he conceded. "The progress which the understanding makes through a book, has more pain than pleasure in it."
James Marriott's new book is on the rise and fall of reading. He argues that reading is fundamentally unnatural and difficult, which is why the rise of radio, television, and the internet has so readily displaced books. James also argues that reading has profound effects, not only on our brains, but also on our politics. Democracy and literacy have historically gone hand in hand. As we become post-literate, will we also become post-democratic?
James Marriott is a columnist and critic at The Times of London. His new book is titled The New Dark Ages: The End of Reading and the Dawn of a Post-Literate Society.
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