Ridiculed for Reading?

[the smiling weirwood]

Oh yes, quite frightening. You don't know the half of it. anyway, back to the topic. I love that phrase! The Unread! Haha!

[j. d. worthington]

Brief digression (he says): Yes, Gollum, you are. They are neither insidious nor subtle. Not unless you count a mallet upside the head as either.

Now, I agree: back on topic: Anyone else encounter ridicule because they actually know that those little squiggle on the paper can carry (gasp!) thought?

Oh, and Carolyn: Spot on.

[the smiling weirwood]

Well, they're not as rowdy as they used to be. Now they just spread hatred and fear by instilling racism, prejudice, and ignorance to future generations. Hopefully one day the cycle will be broken.

[carrie221]

Okay last year when I was in Law School (not high school or anything; an actual professional school); my law school would have school events where they would actually feed us. One such event there was a raffle for a free dinner or something. Me and a few friends went a little early to grab a table and so that we could be first in line for some food and so we could steal some extra bottled water and soda . (Free food goes really fast ) Two of us were reading a book and another person was reading a magizine. A girl who was also a first year law student looked at us like we were insane and asked us why we were bothering to read something that we didn't have to. Together we all went "Because we like to read." Then she called us nerds and walked away looking disgusted.

[littlemissattitude]

Originally Posted by Brown Rat

One of my students asked, "Do we have to read the book?"

The student wasn't making a joke.

Yes. It frightens me sometimes, how clueless some college students can be.

I once took an art appreciation class, the instructor of which was retiring at the end of that semester. As sort of a retirement gift to the class, instead of giving his usual general review of the exam the class period before, at the last class meeting before the final he announced...quite clearly, by the way...that he would be reading the entire exam to us, questions and answers.

Well, at the end of the review, as we were leaving the forum room (I'm talking a couple hundred students here), I don't know how many people I heard saying, "So, what's going to be on the exam?"

Also, as far as the extremist group that shall not be named, and others...the thing that is really frightening is that they aren't all non-readers. There are some of them who have read extensively...they just happen to only see what they want to see in their reading, and tend to read things that back up their point of view.

I had to read a book, Soldiers of God: White Supremacists and Their Holy War for America, by Howard L. Bushart, John R. Craig, and Myra Barnes, Ph.D., for an anthropology class once. There were the stereotypical extremists there, of course, but there were also those who were quite literate and just used that literacy to frightening ends.

[the smiling weirwood]

Fanatics are never pleasant.

[Nesacat]

Meowrr Brown Rat ... the last person who asked me that question was actually an English teacher and she had a totally apalled look on her face.

I've never been actually ridiculed for reading though I have received strange looks over the years and been told several times that it's a 'waste of money' to buy and read books you don't 'need' to read.

I guess they have a different definition of 'need'. Besides, Hamlet got me bonus points in the Criminal Law exams at law school.

[Scriven]

I haven't been ridiculed for reading in general, but I have for reading fantasy. People seem to be under the impression that it's all about dragons and unicorns - a genre for kids only, and not 'proper' literature. That irks me immensely. =(

[Nesacat]

Have come across that attitude very often as well Scriven.

Fantasy books are supposed to be one of those things of childhood that you put away. However, that attitude is changing, albeit very slowly. I'm glad to see SFF being given a separate section in stores now for starters.

[Scriven]

Yes. It's nice to see the genre gaining some respectability (which, imo, it deserves). =)

[Curt Chiarelli]

Ah yes, the KnuckleDraggers Local 666. Irrepressable demons of homogenized sterility and straightjacketed conformity. What's wrong? Can you successfully link a subject to a predicate? Despise the mindless brutality of contact sports? High IQ ruining your social prospects? Why do we have a cure for you! A fist in the old solar plexus, a knee in the groin, lonely Saturday nights and beer-bonging until your neo-cortex has melted in your brain pan will set you aright . . . .

I've had the great misfortune of having my childhood and early adulthood plaqued by these types, one of whom happened to be my own father. I can completely relate to J.D.'s experiences and all that I can add to his and other's observations is that these guys more than likely are projecting onto you their own repressed homoerotic tendencies. It just goes to prove what an empty, hateful, miserable lot these people are. Couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch!

[Curt Chiarelli]

Originally Posted by GOLLUM

Those last 2 posts were quite frightening.

Glad I live where I do *SHUDDER*

I'll second that!

[Saltheart]

A great friend of mine named Mark came from Austria and came to our private school, and he was sort of a genius: he used to read college-level physics and chemistry in the 7th grade!

Anyway, at that time I wasn't like a book freak; I was more of a computer nerd if you will, but I played sports as well. But Mark preferred building his repository of knowledge over sweating and being needlessly aggressive, so when he sat out of sports people kept calling him gay. Now I too at that time had a fullhand experience of being the target of insults, so I stook up for him.

Very soon we became best friends, and he made me the bibliophile I am by teaching me the joys of learning. But people started accusing me of being gay for being the friend of a "gay" guy, and when the year was over he had to leave and go back to Austria.

But because of the hobbies he gave me, I very soon became a topper in my class; but I also knew things out of class, and was nicknamed "Professor" by my favorite English teacher. Everyone started asking me for help, and I became the best writer in school and became nominated for international writing contests. When they ask me how I know so much, I just say, "I read and think about what I read," and they look at me and say, "What do you read?" and I answer, "Everything!" and they just don't understand. But they don't call me gay anymore.

And as for Mark, he is a prodigy in Austria and he's a topper in all the Science courses. He'll probably be the next Einstein because he knows so much. He sometimes visits, but people still call him "gay" around here. But you know what? He has the brightest future of us all ahead of him; whereas the athlethes in our school barely comprehend the IB Courses without extra help.

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Moral of the story: "Gay" people are more successful than drooling jocks. Also homosexual is a less ambiguous word, because "gay" also means happy. So yes, readers are "gay" because they are happy and more successful. Fools.

[Nesacat]

I am lucky to have parents who very much encouraged my bookish tendencies and I still lay the blame for my addiction to words on my mother's shoulders. They may not have always understood the desire to bury myself in books but they supported it through all the years of finding more and more space to fit book shelves in the house.

However, it would appear that men do face ridicule if they are bookish. I've been asking around the last couple of days and it's true. those of read are deemed to be homosexual for some reason, especially if said reading is purely for pleasure. The men who didn't read got very upset and defensive about it and I was treated to an entire tirade which included words like pansy and queer and faggot and a whole slew of others in several languages. Aside from the blatant abuse of some very lovely words, I was pretty startled. I'd not expected such a violent reaction at all, nor did I know so much anger and hatred almost simmered under the surface of executives and bankers and corporate people.

It was, I thought, a reaction totally uncalled for. Why does this thought of reading as a habit cause such a violent reaction.

[the smiling weirwood]

Because people are dumb.