Arnold Kling has an interesting essay in which he attacks… books.
When I finish writing a book review, I will often say to myself, “There! Now nobody has to read the book. I’ve boiled it down for them.” We would be better off if authors did that work themselves.
https://arnoldkling.substack.com/p/the-trouble-with-books
Arnold Kling has read a ton of books, I can guarantee you. He is not saying this because he has always disliked books, or because he dislikes thinking. That, in fact, is what makes this essay worth reading – he is saying this a person who used to love books, and is still in love with what the book represents: knowledge.
But, as any good economist should, he applies his knowledge of economics to the market for consuming books, and tells us that:
- Books don’t have that many ideas in them (they are not information dense, to use his phrasing)
- Our time today is limited (by which I mean we have a lot of alternate uses for our time)
- So either make the books way shorter, or just stop writing them.
If you are someone like me (that is, a book lover), this might fill you with worry. A world without books? What a horrible thought!
Bear in mind that Arnold Kling is talking about non-fiction books, not books in general. And even in such cases, his arguments will not always hold. I don’t read a Bill Bryon non-fiction book to only learn about new ideas, for example. I want Bill Bryson books to contain delightful digressions, delectable diversions and dizzying descriptions. A little spice can liven up even the dullest of subjects, and Bryson is a master in this regard.
But that being said, it is nonetheless true that a book can often be dreadfully dreary. As Arnold Kling says:
But it is hard for a book to be information-dense in terms of ideas. If you have one really important idea, why does it require a whole book? And if you have several important ideas, chances are that readers will miss some of them, or else not remember them. Better to put the ideas into separate essays.
https://wordpress.com/post/econforeverybody.com/13883
A book, like a song from the sixties, is but a vehicle for carrying ideas. The point always was to convey ideas, and lots of them. Inventing the printing press changed humanity for the better, because that allowed for the spread of oh-so-very-many-ideas.
Understanding that electronic screens and artificial intelligence are here to stay will also change humanity for the better, because these will allow for the spread of even more oh-so-very-many-ideas. The supply is already here, who is to say what will happen to demand?
EconForEverybody 