Why Lit Matters

Why literature matters
Good books help make a civil society
By Dana Gioia | April 10, 2005

In 1780 Massachusetts patriot John Adams wrote to his wife, Abigail,
outlining his vision of how American culture might evolve. ''I must study politics and
war," he prophesied, so ''that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics
and philosophy." They will add to their studies geography, navigation,
commerce, and agriculture, he continued, so that their children may enjoy the
''right to study painting, poetry, music . . . "

ADVERTISEMENT
Adams's bold prophecy proved correct. By the mid 20th century, America
boasted internationally preeminent traditions in literature, art, music, dance,
theater, and cinema.

But a strange thing has happened in the American arts during the past quarter
century. While income rose to unforeseen levels, college attendance
ballooned, and access to information increased enormously, the interest young Americans
showed in the arts -- and especially literature -- actually diminished.

According to the 2002 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts, a
population study designed and commissioned by the National Endowment for the Arts (and
executed by the US Bureau of the Census), arts participation by Americans has
declined for eight of the nine major forms that are measured. (Only jazz has
shown a tiny increase -- thank you, Ken Burns.) The declines have been most
severe among younger adults (ages 18-24). The most worrisome finding in the 2002
study, however, is the declining percentage of Americans, especially young
adults, reading literature.

That individuals at a time of crucial intellectual and emotional development
bypass the joys and challenges of literature is a troubling trend. If it were
true that they substituted histories, biographies, or political works for
literature, one might not worry. But book reading of any kind is falling as well.

That such a longstanding and fundamental cultural activity should slip so
swiftly, especially among young adults, signifies deep transformations in
contemporary life. To call attention to the trend, the Arts Endowment issued the
reading portion of the Survey as a separate report, ''Reading at Risk: A Survey of
Literary Reading in America."

The decline in reading has consequences that go beyond literature. The
significance of reading has become a persistent theme in the business world. The
February issue of Wired magazine, for example, sketches a new set of mental
skills and habits proper to the 21st century, aptitudes decidedly literary in
character: not ''linear, logical, analytical talents," author Daniel Pink states,
but ''the ability to create artistic and emotional beauty, to detect patterns
and opportunities, to craft a satisfying narrative." When asked what kind of
talents they like to see in management positions, business leaders consistently
set imagination, creativity, and higher-order thinking at the top.

Ironically, the value of reading and the intellectual faculties that it
inculcates appear most clearly as active and engaged literacy declines. There is
now a growing awareness of the consequences of nonreading to the workplace. In
2001 the National Association of Manufacturers polled its members on skill
deficiencies among employees. Among hourly workers, poor reading skills ranked
second, and 38 percent of employers complained that local schools inadequately
taught reading comprehension.

Corporate America makes similar complaints about a skill intimately related
to reading -- writing. Last year, the College Board reported that corporations
spend some $3.1 billion a year on remedial writing instruction for employees,
adding that they ''express a fair degree of dissatisfaction with the writing
of recent college graduates." If the 21st-century American economy requires
innovation and creativity, solid reading skills and the imaginative growth
fostered by literary reading are central elements in that program.

The decline of reading is also taking its toll in the civic sphere. In a 2000
survey of college seniors from the top 55 colleges, the Roper Organization
found that 81 percent could not earn a grade of C on a high school-level history
test. A 2003 study of 15- to 26-year-olds' civic knowledge by the National
Conference of State Legislatures concluded, ''Young people do not understand the
ideals of citizenship . . . and their appreciation and support of American
democracy is limited."

It is probably no surprise that declining rates of literary reading coincide
with declining levels of historical and political awareness among young
people. One of the surprising findings of ''Reading at Risk" was that literary
readers are markedly more civically engaged than nonreaders, scoring two to four
times more likely to perform charity work, visit a museum, or attend a sporting
event. One reason for their higher social and cultural interactions may lie in
the kind of civic and historical knowledge that comes with literary reading.

Unlike the passive activities of watching television and DVDs or surfing the
Web, reading is actually a highly active enterprise. Reading requires
sustained and focused attention as well as active use of memory and imagination.
Literary reading also enhances and enlarges our humility by helping us imagine and
understand lives quite different from our own.

Indeed, we sometimes underestimate how large a role literature has played in
the evolution of our national identity, especially in that literature often
has served to introduce young people to events from the past and principles of
civil society and governance. Just as more ancient Greeks learned about moral
and political conduct from the epics of Homer than from the dialogues of Plato,
so the most important work in the abolitionist movement was the novel ''Uncle
Tom's Cabin."

Likewise our notions of American populism come more from Walt Whitman's
poetic vision than from any political tracts. Today when people recall the
Depression, the images that most come to mind are of the travails of John Steinbeck's
Joad family from ''The Grapes of Wrath." Without a literary inheritance, the
historical past is impoverished.

In focusing on the social advantages of a literary education, however, we
should not overlook the personal impact. Every day authors receive letters from
readers that say, ''Your book changed my life." History reveals case after case
of famous people whose lives were transformed by literature. When the great
Victorian thinker John Stuart Mill suffered a crippling depression in
late-adolescence, the poetry of Wordsworth restored his optimism and self-confidence --
a ''medicine for my state of mind," he called it.

A few decades later, W.E.B. DuBois found a different tonic in literature, an
escape from the indignities of Jim Crow into a world of equality. ''I sit with
Shakespeare and he winces not," DuBois observed. ''Across the color line I
move arm in arm with Balzac and Dumas, where smiling men and welcoming women
glide in gilded halls." Literature is a catalyst for education and culture.

The evidence of literature's importance to civic, personal, and economic
health is too strong to ignore. The decline of literary reading foreshadows
serious long-term social and economic problems, and it is time to bring literature
and the other arts into discussions of public policy. Libraries, schools, and
public agencies do noble work, but addressing the reading issue will require
the leadership of politicians and the business community as well.

Literature now competes with an enormous array of electronic media. While no
single activity is responsible for the decline in reading, the cumulative
presence and availability of electronic alternatives increasingly have drawn
Americans away from reading.

Reading is not a timeless, universal capability. Advanced literacy is a
specific intellectual skill and social habit that depends on a great many
educational, cultural, and economic factors. As more Americans lose this capability,
our nation becomes less informed, active, and independent-minded. These are not
the qualities that a free, innovative, or productive society can afford to
lose.

Dana Gioia is chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/04/10/wh
y_literature_matters?pg=full