Informed, Hip, Cultivated

David Brooks, in his The New York Times column on July 9, 2010 (The Medium Is the Medium), weighs in on the worlds of Internet reading and learning versus books and the library. Traditional reading and learning has been an exercise in slow and deep - - the goal was some level of lasting wisdom. The Internet as learning platform smashes hierarchy with a culture that is egalitarian.

Brooks writes the following:

These different cultures foster different types of learning. The great essayist Joseph Epstein once distinguished between being informed, being hip and being cultivated. The Internet helps you become well informed - - knowledgeable about current events, the latest controversies and important trends. The Internet also helps you become hip - - to learn about what's going on, as Epstein writes, "in those lively waters outside the boring mainstream."

But the literary world is still better at helping you become cultivated, mastering significant things of lasting import. To learn these sorts of things, you have to defer to greater minds than your own. You have to take the time to immerse yourself in a great writer's world. You have to respect the authority of the teacher.

Right now, the literary world is better at encouraging this kind of identity. The Internet culture may produce better conversationalists, but the literary culture still produces better students.

It's better at distinguishing the important from the unimportant, and making the important more prestigious.