Bulldozers and Trowels

The great dystopian authors of the 20th century trembled in their shoes at the thought of what might happen after the abolition of books. Much of the West must have felt the same, since 1984 sold tens of millions of copies. The prophetic campaign apparently worked; generations after the publication of the novel and its compatriots, books are as legal as ever. There’s one problem though. Nobody reads them. To some, this may not seem so great a loss. Or, perhaps more accurately, many believe this isn’t a loss at all. I’d like to change minds on that. Maybe yours today. Maybe thousands tomorrow. We’ll see.

Since I currently have little sense of my audience, however, I’ll presume for just a moment that you agree with me; we have a problem. If so, how should ‘higher education’ operate in the face of the reading crisis? A vast majority of college students today refuse to—or “can’t,” as the news was saying it a couple months ago—read entire books. If universities were already bogus enterprises prior to this predicament, what are they now? But let’s pretend—for the sake of contemplation—that you and I can somehow redeem them. How should we construct such reforms?

In May of ’24, I graduated from a tiny one-year college that focused on studying great literature. Seven months later, I completed my first semester at a large university that accepts 99% of its applicants. The two could not be more different, and I’m not just referring to scale. Both institutions teach basic gen-eds from a Christian worldview, but the first challenged and transformed me more than any other experience, while the second is less rigorous than my senior year of high school.

During the bridge-year, our professors encouraged us to think harder than we thought possible, told us we were capable of such things, and gave us the tools to do so. We wholeheartedly rose to meet the occasion. At a “real” university, on the other hand, the shadowy higher-ups seem to sheepishly slink away from the possibility of pushing me beyond my current intellectual bounds. One gen-ed professor even prided herself on the fact that her class was as easy as possible. She explained this regularly, seemingly with more passion than she had for the subject material itself. Naturally, we students mirrored her attitude, responding with apathy and laziness. Why should we care if she doesn’t? We’ll get As anyway.

And when a rare, so-called ‘difficult’ professor dares to make reading the book an essential part of the class, many of my classmates shamelessly use ChatGPT to survive reading quizzes.

I don’t blame my college, though. Apparently, they figured a higher acceptance rate equals more students, and more students equals more culturally transformative power. The mentality is, in their words, that the institution must produce as many “champions for Christ” as possible. But once that goal fails, how do you go back? The Snapchat generation walks your halls. Dare to ensure they do the assigned reading, and suddenly half the class of ’27 will drop out.

In my view, primary schools strategically instill their victims with weak character, pointless values, and false worldview. They corrupt the next generation before it even reaches higher education. (If you disagree, I recommend reading John Taylor Gatto.) As if this weren’t a problem enough, we’ve thrown mindless visual entertainment into the mix. If the Weapons of Mass Instruction of public education are King Ahab, then Jezebel must be our little act of Amusing Ourselves to Death. (Go read Neil Postman, please.) But shouldn’t so-called ‘Christian universities’ be our Elijah?

If you’re not so sure about that, you can at least see that colleges are dependent on assigned reading as a teaching method. You also can agree that many students today won’t look at ink and paper for more than twenty minutes at a time. Therefore, we have a problem. What shall we do about it? We could, you may suggest, entirely replace reading; let students watch videos. I assure you, however, that this plan will fail. You may know I’m obsessed with how mediums affect the ideas strung through them. But even if you disagree with that, you should be able to see a major weakness in our proposed tactic.

Videos are ten times more expensive to produce than books. And if you want them to even begin to compete for attention with doomscrolling and gaming, that number might be more like fifty. When we factor in the updates in information that college texts require, plus the visual updates needed to keep up with culture (a need unknown to books), the entire operation would cost more than any company, government, or student could ever afford. Cheap videos, on the other hand, are boring videos; boring videos still lose the competition for attention.

Many of the solutions in my own head would, I’m afraid, collapse just as tragically if implemented. If we required students at our hypothetical institution to abstain from social media, video games, and the like, few students would want to apply. If we forced them to sit in a room and read while professors observed, we would communicate to our students that they are mere children. We could, I may suggest, build the program for the few scholars who have already decided to unplug from the binds of technological distractions. But such a place offers the danger of producing a band of self-proclaimed elites. Our culture no longer listens to such people.

As far as I can tell, a practically definable solution does not exist. When presented with cultural problems, educational institutions love to implement measurable tactics with measurable outcomes. Unfortunately, such strategies fail for unpredicted reasons on a constant basis. Why? We can’t measure everything; the problem is complicated. These days, technology and culture perpetually encourage each other to bring out a slew of vices. This problem consists of more interconnected roots than what you could remove with a trowel. We need a bulldozer, but we’re scared to use one.

Oddly enough, my university just decided to try a bulldozer: a full-on assault of social media use. Through inspiring speakers and ten-dollar workbooks, they hope to convince us all to take part in a 28-day fast. Afterwards, we shall return to the mine field with triumph. While I fear this vehicle is nothing but a slightly larger trowel in disguise, I commend them for caring about the problem. They’ve certainly stepped up more than Harvard.

But in all this pessimistic exposition, I see a way out. Not for college campuses, but for each student. I know; I’ve tasted it. In high school, I probably watched over five hours of YouTube each day and read one or two non-school books per year. Then, in the course of a year, my apathy evolved into an identity crisis, and that crisis sent me to learn at the table of wise leaders. They inspired me to regain my childhood wonder for learning and knowledge, while simultaneously expecting from me the social behavior of a healthy adult. I am forever grateful. Today, I spend less than twenty minutes a day on content fed to me by algorithms. I make time to think, pray, and read. Such practices do not make me morally superior. Rather, they bless me with the freedom to access and grow a sacred God-given gift: my own mind.

If you feel your grip on your own mind fade with each scroll your thumb makes, you are not alone. It’s your entire campus, and all the rest of them. But supportive peers and mentors will help if you ask. You can search for a clear worldview and act upon it. You can call upon a bulldozer. You can live as a healthy human. You can even read a good book.