Monday, June 04, 2007

I know nothing

It was Dr. Seuss who said," The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go."

This recent article from CNN highlights a disturbing trend; people are reading less.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/05/28/book.burning.ap/index.html

I don't know what to make of this. I'm not saying that a book is necessarily always a better quality source of information than a television screen or a web page, but I've always considering reading to be more conducive to personal development than watching television or spending time on the internet.

Here's where I get philosophical. In contemporary society, we have unprecedented access to information and knowledge. Wisdom, which is applied knowledge, is another matter. We have more knowledge at our fingertips then ever before, but we don't necessarily have more wisdom. Intelligence and wisdom aren't the same thing.

5 comments:

Kitty Cheng said...

I agree with you that reading is more useful in terms of personal development than the watching tv or spending time on the internet. As much as I enjoy surfing the net nowadays (I seldom watch TV these days though), I still enjoy reading books heaps.

Glen O'Brien said...

Spot on Ross.

Ross said...

Thanks Glen. How heartening it is that someone on cyberspace likes what I have to say. Elsewhere I get a somewhat more hostile reaction.

Anonymous said...

Seems you know a lot more than what you give yourself credit for!

Ross said...

Anonymous, the title from this post is an obscure popular culture reference. It wasn't my intention to denigrate myself as such.