You should not read books
And some of you have already done it — I told you so!
“Books were seen as a waste of time. What was the point, unless you were reading for information? To lose oneself in a book was to be slightly wacky, a little greedy and ultimately slothful. There was no value. You couldn't make money from reading a book. A book did not clean bathrooms and waxed floors. It did not put the garden in. You couldn't have a conversation while reading. It was arrogant and alienated others. In short, those who read were wasteful and haughty and incapable of living in the real world. They were dreamers.”
— David Bergen, The Age of Hope
I'm here to argue that people should not read. Here's why.
Reading is one of the most attention-demanding tasks. Unlike other activities, you can’t multitask while reading. There’s no such thing as reading while doing the dishes. It’s not something you can do passively, like listening to a podcast.
You would think that with such a high investment of effort, the return would be enormous. But not quite.
Reading makes people self-righteous. It makes them think they’re better than those who don’t read. It also makes them pretentious, and it alienates anyone who doesn’t share their preferences, especially if their literary tastes don’t meet some arbitrary standard.
"Wait, you only read self-help books?"
It gives people the illusion of knowledge, especially when they read without checking for accuracy. They may end up learning a lot of nonsense. And as Brandolini's Law states: The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude greater than that needed to produce it.
Reading can also enable bad behavior. There have been many cases of people stealing books and reselling them at lower prices, just to fulfill the hunger of fellow readers.
And let’s be honest. It doesn’t even guarantee success. While there’s a saying that “leaders are readers,” the truth is that many people rise to leadership without reading at all.
Reading isn’t always good for mental health either. It makes people overthink and overanalyze their lives to the point of exhaustion. All that self-consciousness often leads nowhere.
There are many other downsides to reading. As an activity, it should come with a warning so people don’t mindlessly do it without knowing what they’re getting into.
After all, if reading truly is one of the most useful activities in life, why don’t more people with the means to read actually do it? What’s the point in arguing about the importance of books if people’s actions clearly don’t reflect that value?
As Musa al-Gharbi wrote in We Have Never Been Woke:
"Put another way, you don’t observe what is important to someone by what they say but rather by what they do, and by how they structure their lives. If something is valuable to a person, truly central to their being, they make room for it. They make sacrifices for it... On the other hand, if an expressed commitment does not meaningfully change how one operates, this is a sign that said commitment is not very important... Across the board, where and how people invest their resources, and what they are willing to risk or give up... provides far richer insight into what people care about than the narratives people try to spin about themselves..."
This isn’t just seen in individual behavior. It’s also seen in how our society operates. We incentivize buying books more than actually reading them. Companies are happy to offer discounts, but they don’t restructure work hours to give people more leisure time. So while they may be sincere in promoting reading, their actions often support the very argument I’m making.
Truly, I’m just pointing out what you already do—or in this case, don’t.
Happy Buying Books, Everyone. And Happy National Book Day!