Reading Is Ephemeral

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In American middle-class society, there's a list of things that are valued in the abstract and ignored in practice. Let's call them Institutional Hypocrises. Most of these totems are foisted off on children, including religion, the environment, and good nutrition. Adults avoid their churches, pollute, and eat chee-tos. Children are expected to go to Sunday School, take part in ecological cleanups, and eat "right".

To this list we should probably now add literacy. My library employee friends locally tell me that the library is now a Blockbuster mostly. People check out videos like crazy, and the books gather dust, except for the childrens books which are constantly in demand.

So now that I am a man, I suppose I should put away childish things and stop honoring my God, stop recycling, eat more chocolate pudding and less bran, and watch "Elimidate" instead of re-reading Joyce. I'm such an immature disaster.

Comments

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It's not that people say "I don't believe in God" or don't go to church. I'm talking about good old American practical atheism, where you call yourself Christian, say you believe in God, and send the kids to Sunday school while you drink in front of the TV. I didn't mean to get into a demographic thing, which is pretty pointless to my argument anyway since these people lie to demographers too.