Reading Literature Makes Us Smarter and Nicer

See ... when I'm feeling lazy and just want to be left to enjoy a good book for a bit, I am actually doing something good for me and society! Read on ... this article is rather interesting.

Gregory Currie, a professor of philosophy at the University of Nottingham, recently argued in the New York Times that we ought not to claim that literature improves us as people, because there is no “compelling evidence that suggests that people are morally or socially better for reading Tolstoy” or other great books.

Actually, there is such evidence. Raymond Mar, a psychologist at York University in Canada, and Keith Oatley, a professor emeritus of cognitive psychology at the University of Toronto, reported in studies published in 2006 and 2009 that individuals who often read fiction appear to be better able to understand other people, empathize with them and view the world from their perspective. This link persisted even after the researchers factored in the possibility that more empathetic individuals might choose to read more novels. A 2010 study by Mar found a similar result in young children: the more stories they had read to them, the keener their “theory of mind,” or mental model of other people’s intentions.

“Deep reading” — as opposed to the often superficial reading we do on the Web — is an endangered practice, one we ought to take steps to preserve as we would a historic building or a significant work of art. Its disappearance would imperil the intellectual and emotional development of generations growing up online, as well as the perpetuation of a critical part of our culture: the novels, poems and other kinds of literature that can be appreciated only by readers whose brains, quite literally, have been trained to apprehend them.

Recent research in cognitive science, psychology and neuroscience has demonstrated that deep reading — slow, immersive, rich in sensory detail and emotional and moral complexity — is a distinctive experience, different in kind from the mere decoding of words. Although deep reading does not, strictly speaking, require a conventional book, the built-in limits of the printed page are uniquely conducive to the deep reading experience. A book’s lack of hyperlinks, for example, frees the reader from making decisions — Should I click on this link or not? — allowing her to remain fully immersed in the narrative.

That immersion is supported by the way the brain handles language rich in detail, allusion and metaphor: by creating a mental representation that draws on the same brain regions that would be active if the scene were unfolding in real life. The emotional situations and moral dilemmas that are the stuff of literature are also vigorous exercise for the brain, propelling us inside the heads of fictional characters and even, studies suggest, increasing our real-life capacity for empathy.

None of this is likely to happen when we’re scrolling through TMZ. Although we call the activity by the same name, the deep reading of books and the information-driven reading we do on the Web are very different, both in the experience they produce and in the capacities they develop. A growing body of evidence suggests that online reading may be less engaging and less satisfying, even for the “digital natives” for whom it is so familiar. Last month, for example, Britain’s National Literacy Trust released the results of a study of 34,910 young people aged 8 to 16. Researchers reported that 39% of children and teens read daily using electronic devices, but only 28% read printed materials every day. Those who read only onscreen were three times less likely to say they enjoy reading very much and a third less likely to have a favorite book. The study also found that young people who read daily only onscreen were nearly two times less likely to be above-average readers than those who read daily in print or both in print and onscreen.

To understand why we should be concerned about how young people read, and not just whether they’re reading at all, it helps to know something about the way the ability to read evolved. “Human beings were never born to read,” notes Maryanne Wolf, director of the Center for Reading and Language Research at Tufts University and author of Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain. Unlike the ability to understand and produce spoken language, which under normal circumstances will unfold according to a program dictated by our genes, the ability to read must be painstakingly acquired by each individual. The “reading circuits” we construct are recruited from structures in the brain that evolved for other purposes — and these circuits can be feeble or they can be robust, depending on how often and how vigorously we use them.

The deep reader, protected from distractions and attuned to the nuances of language, enters a state that psychologist Victor Nell, in a study of the psychology of pleasure reading, likens to a hypnotic trance. Nell found that when readers are enjoying the experience the most, the pace of their reading actually slows. The combination of fast, fluent decoding of words and slow, unhurried progress on the page gives deep readers time to enrich their reading with reflection, analysis, and their own memories and opinions. It gives them time to establish an intimate relationship with the author, the two of them engaged in an extended and ardent conversation like people falling in love.

This is not reading as many young people are coming to know it. Their reading is pragmatic and instrumental: the difference between what literary critic Frank Kermode calls “carnal reading” and “spiritual reading.” If we allow our offspring to believe carnal reading is all there is — if we don’t open the door to spiritual reading, through an early insistence on discipline and practice — we will have cheated them of an enjoyable, even ecstatic experience they would not otherwise encounter. And we will have deprived them of an elevating and enlightening experience that will enlarge them as people. Observing young people’s attachment to digital devices, some progressive educators and permissive parents talk about needing to “meet kids where they are,” molding instruction around their onscreen habits. This is mistaken. We need, rather, to show them someplace they’ve never been, a place only deep reading can take them.

Have We Turned A Blind Eye To Domestic Terrorism?

Among the more off-putting commentary in the immediate aftermath of the attack on a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisc., were the vacuous musings of a number of TV journalists, speculating why the shooter targeted this community. Why did he “have beef with the Sikhs?” one asked. Then came the bemused refrain — Sikhism is different from Islam — as if somehow everything would make more sense had there been six Muslims shot dead on a balmy summer day in Wisconsin.

On a lot of levels, though, it doesn’t matter whether the dead were Sikh or Muslim, not least because Wade Michael Page, the terrorist who killed them, probably wouldn’t have cared. Yes, Sikhs, many of whom grow long beards and wear turbans, have faced shameful discrimination in the decade since 9/11 — the unwitting scapegoats of anti-Muslim fervor nationwide. But to Page, an Army vet immersed in a world of far-right hate, the people he shot were brown-skinned and irredeemably “the Other.” That was enough to pull the trigger.

It’s that ideology that needs to be taken to task, that needs to be front and center of the national conversation. But will it be?

One can imagine how different the reaction would have been had Page been a Muslim-American, and his victims Christian churchgoers. Immediately, we would see grim-faced talking heads pronouncing upon the pathologies of Islam — a whole culture — and the reach of global terror networks.

Politicians would have started grandstanding, calling on moderate Muslims to repudiate the radicals in their midst. They would use the incident to justify the extensive monitoring and (possibly unconstitutional) profiling of Muslim-Americans that’s already in place. They would exploit anti-Muslim sentiment to score cheap shots against Washington rivals. They would warn their citizenry to eschew “political correctness” and get smart to the danger of Muslims everywhere “trying to kill Americans” — the very words spoken by Illinois Republican congressman Joe Walsh just days after the slaughter in Oak Creek.

But now, in the aftermath of the shootings in Oak Creek, isn’t it time to confront the actual terrorists in our midsts? As Peter Bergen, a TIME contributor and CNN national security analyst recently pointed out, white supremacist and far-right violence has claimed more lives in the U.S. since 9/11 than its Islamist counterpart. In his own deranged writings, Anders Breivik, the far-right Norwegian responsible for one of the worst massacres in his country’s history, liberally cites the writings of neo-Nazi and Islamophobic websites based in the U.S. A recent analysis of the more than 300 cases of domestic terrorism since 9/11 found, in the words of the New Yorker’s Steve Coll, that “all of the most frightening cases — involving chemical, biological, and radiological materials — arose from right-wing extremists or anarchists. None arose from Islamist militancy.”

Yet no politician is calling for federal hearings on the threat of white supremacists in the U.S. — the type of neo-Mccarthyist agit-prop staged by New York congressman Pete King earlier this year when he held a hearing on the dangers of “Islamic radicalization” within Muslim-American communities.

In 2009, when the Department of Homeland Security issued a nine-page report on “Right-Wing Extremism”, the U.S.’s right-wing punditocracy went into overdrive, lambasting the report as an attempt to smear Republicans as a whole. The analyst who wrote it would leave the DHS a year later; his small team of domestic terrorism analysts was effectively shut down. One of the report’s findings warned of growing numbers of disaffected Army vets turning to neo-Nazi hate groups.

In Oak Creek, there’s little time for recrimination and anger. On Thursday, the Sikh congregation returned to its temple, ritually cleaning and purifying it. They are keeping exposed one bullet hole in the wall, a mark of remembrance that speaks volumes of the strength of this community. Yes, the country ought to get to know such an inspiring, brave set of fellow Americans better — and, of course, understand what the difference between a Sikh and a Muslim is. But the real question that needs an answer is why one type of hate seems more tolerable than another.

Why Mother Teresa Still Matters

Mother Teresa accompanied by children at her mission in Calcutta, Dec. 5, 1980.

 

How do secular people remember a saint? As Mother Teresa‘s birthday on August 26th and the anniversary of her death on September 5th approach, I found myself thinking about this. I tried to imagine what I would know about the woman, 15 years gone, if I didn’t write about religion for a living. Probably that she was good to the poor. Short. A friend of Lady Di’s. I concluded that unless I were a pious Roman Catholic, I would know very little, which led me to consider the difference between the way the Roman Catholic church treats its deserving dead and the way society at large does.

Here’s how her Church remembers a Teresa. The moment she dies, a clock starts ticking. After a year the Vatican commences an investigation into her possible sainthood. That process’s first step is to determine that — in life — she had exhibited qualities (“heroic virtue”) that Catholicism finds amazing and exemplary. Next the focus shifts to her post-life. In 2002, the Vatican validates as miraculous the disappearance of a tumor in a woman who prayed to Teresa in heaven, and consequently, 250,000 people flock to Rome to attend her “beatification” as the Blessed Teresa. There is anticipation of and perhaps some impatience about a second miracle — not yet identified — that will enable her to be canonized as a saint. There are hurdles and steps, disappointments and triumphs, through which Teresa’s afterlife becomes nearly as eventful as her pre-death. Year after year, believers are led through a dynamic process defining and testing her meaning to the church.

Now compare this to the way in which non-Catholics are remembering — or rather, rapidly forgetting — Mother Teresa. For the most part, Americans are the opposite of the kid in The Sixth Sense: we don’t see dead people. Actors and artists may live on through films or novels; athletes perhaps on videotape. Save for U.S. presidents and Martin Luther King, Jr., moral and political heroes quickly devolve into name-checks. It’s as if the more polarized and fragmented a society we become, the less agreement there is on who should be remembered.

Least likely to be recalled is a subcategory of the famous dear to my profession:  religious figures like Teresa, whose fame transcends their creeds. She was part of  the kind of greatest-generation bumper crop that also included Billy Graham, Pope John Paul II, and (every team needs a junior member) the Dalai Lama. But can their memory survive them? Graham finished in the Gallup poll’s top 10 “most admired” men 55 out of the last 56 years. How long after he passes on will anyone but evangelicals remember why? What will be left of the Dalai Lama on the public retina but his smile and the borders of Tibet? The religious boundaries that such figures knock down in life by sheer force of personality or achievement close in on them again with the walls of the grave.

I can’t pretend to reverse this cross-denominational amnesia in any kind of general way — it’s who we are now. However, I’ve solved it to my own satisfaction regarding Teresa, someone I personally would like to remember. I made up a mnemonic. (She loved mnemonics.) I use a bland phrase — “she worked with the poor” — and remind myself of how she managed to revitalize  and electrify each word of it. For “the poor,” Teresa substituted “the poorest of the poor,” creating both a new category and a corresponding moral obligation, first identified in Calcutta’s worst slums and then — surprise! — almost everywhere you looked.  She intensified the concept of “worked with” by plunging her nuns into an intimate, systematic, sometimes brutal coexistence with the poorest. And thanks to organizational genius, public relations savvy and nonstop travel, she transformed the humble mandate into institutions: thousands of schools, orphanages and hospices in most of the countries in the world. (Not covered by my catchphrase is the fact, revealed in letters after her death, that she accomplished all this despite a devastating 40-year spiritual depression — backwards, as it were, in heels.)

“Worked with the poor” is not among the catchiest memory gimmicks on record. (Those, predictably, are Property of the Church: the Stations of the Cross, the Rosary). But it enables me to summon up more than just a weathered face when I try to remember why Mother Teresa might remain important to a secular Jew like myself. And — as sometimes happens — the more I recall, the more worthwhile the recalling seems.

World finds unique ways to mark 9/11 anniversary

Residents of a small Filipino village lined up flowers. Firefighters in Sydney, Australia, climbed stairs to the top of a skyscraper and shed tears. In Madrid, Spain, a crowd of several hundred gathered to plant trees and hold a moment of silence.

Around the world on Sunday, people remembered 9/11, marking in their own ways the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks that brought much of the world to a standstill.

Jose Luis San Pio, who lost his daughter in the attacks, said the pain gets worse with each anniversary. "But Sylvia is always in my memory," he said, during a ceremony at a Madrid park where 10 American Oak trees were planted.

Sylvia San Pio Resta, 26, was the only Spaniard to die in the attacks. She was pregnant and worked in the Twin Towers, as did her American husband, John Resta, who also died. They were both financial traders.

"We are here to remember those who died on that day but also to celebrate their memory," said U.S. Ambassador to Spain Alan Solomont.

The crowd observed a moment of silence for the 9/11 victims.

In Sydney -- 10,000 miles from New York, where the World Trade Center towers were leveled in the attacks -- firefighters held their own moment of silence for their lost brethren.

They climbed 80 flights of stairs to the top of Sydney Tower, the city's tallest building, in a testament to the firefighters in New York who rushed into the burning towers.

"This is the least we could do just to say thank you," said one.

"So many of them didn't go home that day," said another.

CNN affiliate 9 News reported on a moment of silence the firefighters held at the top -- and showed one young firefighter weeping.

Later, at an interfaith memorial service in Sydney's St. Mary's Cathedral, Cardinal George Pell, Sydney's archbishop, said, "While belonging to different religious traditions, we're united in our opposition to terrorism."

In some parts of the world, people found quiet ways to mark the solemn occasion and pay their respects.

Residents of the Gawad Kalinga village in Baseco Compound in Manila, Philippines, brought flowers to a marker in memory of Marie Rose Abad, who was killed in the attacks. Her husband Rudy, a Filipino-American, had donated funds for the construction of 48 homes in their village as a tribute to their 26 years of marriage, CNN affiliate ABS-CBN reported Sunday.

In front of the U.S. Embassy in London's Grosvenor Square, dignitaries joined loved ones of Britons who died in the attacks.

"Although that dreadful act of violence was meant to divide us, it has actually drawn us together, one person to another, one community to another" said Prince Charles.

"On this anniversary we are drawn to you in our thoughts and in our prayers, knowing that we cannot change the past, but that through struggling to find a light that can lighten our darkness, we may ultimately bring the healing the world so desperately needs."

Family members stepped up to read the names of their lost loved ones, then placed long-stem white roses attached to small black-and-white photos of the victims on a 9/11 memorial garden.

In Ancona, Italy, Pope Benedict XVI offered a prayer in memory of the victims.

Saying he was thinking of those who lost their lives and the victims' families, the pontiff said, "I invite the leaders of nations and men of good will to reject violence always as a solution to problems, to resist the temptation to hate and to work within society based on the principles of solidarity, justice and peace."

Paris held a moving ceremony at the Place du Trocadero, also known as Human Rights Plaza. Two replica towers about 80 feet tall, representing the World Trade Center, were erected, covered with large canvasses displaying the names of the victims of each tower.

About 200 people gathered for the ceremony, despite the windy, rainy weather. A French mother, who brought her 2-year-old daughter, said she felt the need to be there to support the United States. She recalled the front page of the French newspaper Le Monde at the time of the attacks, which carried the headline, "We are all Americans."

The event ended with the flight of 40 doves released by children.

Among those commemorating 9/11 on Sunday were U.S. troops stationed overseas, including in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Members of Joint Base Balad, Iraq, took part in a 24-hour flag run/walk vigil combined with a remembrance ceremony, the U.S. military said.

"I'm from New York, so I remember 9/11 like yesterday, I responded to the towers, so New York City is embedded in me," said Master Sgt. George Pardee, 332nd Expeditionary Logistics Readiness Squadron Vehicle Maintenance flight.

At U.S. bases in Afghanistan, where soldiers are fighting a war triggered by the 9/11 attacks, soldiers took part in ceremonies to reflect as well.

"Don't forget what happened on that day, and remember the reason why we fight," said Air Force Master Sgt. Alex Kruhlinski, a radio frequency transmission systems specialist in Kapisa Province.

In countries all over the world, many people stopped what they were doing Sunday to watch the 9/11 memorials on TV -- and to share memories on social media.

David Bennett was in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, watching the ceremonies on CNN with friends. He told CNN via Facebook that he was "thinking about the loss and where I was when I first heard about what was happening that morning."

"Being a Muslim convert, one who chooses to wear the headscarf, even here in rural Ontario, Canada, I'm choosing to stay home today and reflect on this day and how the world changed," Alice Paisley-Ellis told CNN via Facebook. She also said there are people who "believe all Muslims were responsible for this, and I choose not to put myself in their path today."

Jacob Meitus said he was in Israel, taking part in a moment of silence. "We are thinking of American brothers-in-arms and all those who lost love ones. Long live freedom!"

Petra Nelson, a former New Yorker, was in Sweden, thinking of the Big Apple. "I've never been back to NYC since 9/11," she told CNN, "and I miss it every day."

'I love you,' says the talking pooch

Mishka, the eight-year-old talking pup from New Jersey is captivating people all over the world. In a viral video that's gotten more than 55 million hits on YouTube, she tells her owners, "I love you." Now, she's an internet sensation.

“I think she is actually feeling that kind of emotion when she says that to us,” Mishka’s owner Matt Gardea told NBC News. “People find that real sweet.”