This reminds me of something that I heard once from a Chinese teacher. I can't vouch for the accuracy of it, but he was definitely on to
something: In the West, it is assumed that it is the speaker's job to make himself understood to his listeners. In the East, it is the other way around.
In recent times, it seems like we've gotten even more extreme. The speaker or writer must not only spoon-feed the understanding, they also have to provide the motivation and the entertainment. Which I find sad, because some things you can't get unless you go to the effort of extracting them yourself. (See many reproducible psychology findings about retention being highly correlated with depth of processing, for example.) It's like the information equivalent of highly processed food.
I find myself falling into this trap on sites like this. An interesting but difficult article will be posted, I won't immediately know what to think or where I stand on the topic, and I'll flip to the comments so that I can get some part of the collective to tell me what to think and how to feel about it. Which is also sad.
In paintings, it is known that the viewer can get out more than the painter put in. It used to be the same with writing, but it feels like that is becoming more rare and less acceptable. If a reader can't follow the argument, it's automatically the author's fault and a waste of the reader's time. Heaven forbid the reader might need to exert some effort and grow in the gleaning.
In recent times, it seems like we've gotten even more extreme. The speaker or writer must not only spoon-feed the understanding, they also have to provide the motivation and the entertainment. Which I find sad, because some things you can't get unless you go to the effort of extracting them yourself. (See many reproducible psychology findings about retention being highly correlated with depth of processing, for example.) It's like the information equivalent of highly processed food.
I find myself falling into this trap on sites like this. An interesting but difficult article will be posted, I won't immediately know what to think or where I stand on the topic, and I'll flip to the comments so that I can get some part of the collective to tell me what to think and how to feel about it. Which is also sad.
In paintings, it is known that the viewer can get out more than the painter put in. It used to be the same with writing, but it feels like that is becoming more rare and less acceptable. If a reader can't follow the argument, it's automatically the author's fault and a waste of the reader's time. Heaven forbid the reader might need to exert some effort and grow in the gleaning.