The reader must come armed, in a serious state of intellectual readiness. This is not easy because he comes to the text alone. In reading, one’s responses are isolated, one’s intellect thrown back on its own resources. To be confronted by the cold abstractions of printed scentences is to look upon language bare, without the assistence of either beauty or community, Thus, reading is by its nature a serious business. It is also, of course, an essentially rational activity.
Neil Postman: Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985)
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