1. This is exactly right and inspires a few thoughts I have on Marshall McLuhan, Neil Postman, Ulysses, literacy, FDR, Eisenhower & presidential reading.https://twitter.com/emilynussbaum/status/1113937215757877248 …
-
Show this thread
-
2. Trump is the first post-literate president. Reading is just not his thing. TV is his main medium: it's the prism through which he understands the world. This marks him off from everyone who previously held the office.
30 replies 79 retweets 338 likesShow this thread -
3. Part of me is, I confess, annoyed by the performative intellectualism of Buttigieg's list of favorite books. I mean, I would rather have a social democrat who read only trashy novels to a neoliberal who read admittedly great books like Ulysses. But that's not the divide.
15 replies 16 retweets 247 likesShow this thread -
4. The real divide, as McLuhan and Postman taught us, is between literacy & post-literacy, between those who can read (for whom the written word is a part of their life) and those whom other media have supplanted reading.
2 replies 28 retweets 174 likesShow this thread -
5. People are saying Reagan & Bush Jr. weren't readers, but the evidence doesn't bear that out. Reagan's mostly read right wing media (Human Events, National Review, even Reader's Digest) but he clearly digested it and it formed his worldview.
5 replies 10 retweets 114 likesShow this thread -
6. Bush Jr. also, the evidence suggests, dutifully read the popular histories Karl Rove and others gave him. He was still part of the world of literacy in a way that Trump is not.
5 replies 10 retweets 123 likesShow this thread -
7. Some presidents have been great readers (TR, Woodrow Wilson, FDR,
@dick_nixon), some more casual. But again, it doesn't really matter what they read as the fact that they did read: reading giving them habits of linear, sequential thinking & abstraction which Trump lacks.10 replies 27 retweets 197 likesShow this thread -
Replying to @HeerJeet @dick_nixon
@HeerJeet Do you think any presidents read Gasoline Alley??1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
Among Frank King's paper I found a fan letter from @dick_nixon
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.