>I think what the person is coming at is the question whether people in Victorian times had read and revered books as much, had alternatives like television and the internet existed back then etc. And I personally agree with his sentiment, that they would obviously not do that, it's just a form of romanticism and cultural pessimism.
They obviously wouldn't.
The important question though is not whether they would, but whether they should.
In other words, the victorian times people reading might very well have been a byproduct of them not having TV, games, internet, etc. In fact it totally was.
But that's totally uninteresting, and not an argument as to whether losing that kind of activity is bad or good.
In other words, just like etymology doesn't tell us what a word means, just how it got started, the historical factors that led to people reading and revering books back in the day don't tell us whether doing so is good or bad, and whether we'd be better of continuing it even if the conditions that made it popular have changed.
The conditions that made physical activity for the cavemen popular (collecting food, not being eaten by lions, etc.) have changed totally, but physical activity is still good for us. To the point that sitting still most of our days kills us prematurely compared to what we could achieve given our advancements in medicine.
Things can be historical accidents, and still be better than the items that replaced them (either through conscious effort or as historical accidents themselves).
(To quote Hoare on a similar issue: "[ALGOL 60] is a language so far ahead of its time, that it was not only an improvement on its predecessors, but also on nearly all its successors").
I agree with you, but it's pretty obvious to me, that most people generalize over media in a very broad fashion, and romanticize reading books, going to the theater etc, while talking down on video games/television in a purely dogmatic fashion, ie, the question of a medias inherent qualities is never considered.
Because I'd personally agree with most people that video games and television are relatively shitty, but that's not a function of the artform, but the artists, who themselves are a function of the culture they are embedded in. And additionally there is a lot of pulp or generic genre lit that's similarly devoid of meaning as most vidyas or tv series.
They obviously wouldn't.
The important question though is not whether they would, but whether they should.
In other words, the victorian times people reading might very well have been a byproduct of them not having TV, games, internet, etc. In fact it totally was.
But that's totally uninteresting, and not an argument as to whether losing that kind of activity is bad or good.
In other words, just like etymology doesn't tell us what a word means, just how it got started, the historical factors that led to people reading and revering books back in the day don't tell us whether doing so is good or bad, and whether we'd be better of continuing it even if the conditions that made it popular have changed.
The conditions that made physical activity for the cavemen popular (collecting food, not being eaten by lions, etc.) have changed totally, but physical activity is still good for us. To the point that sitting still most of our days kills us prematurely compared to what we could achieve given our advancements in medicine.
Things can be historical accidents, and still be better than the items that replaced them (either through conscious effort or as historical accidents themselves).
(To quote Hoare on a similar issue: "[ALGOL 60] is a language so far ahead of its time, that it was not only an improvement on its predecessors, but also on nearly all its successors").