1. The Case of Reading in Today’s World

The first of a series of essays to reflect on navigating the reader life, keeping the context of today

Welcome to Stories and States! I’m Bakhtawar, and I write about the literature I consume while trying to keep my morality intact as the world makes the reader-scape more difficult to navigate day after day.

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As someone who has been quite connected with the book community on social media (Instagram and YouTube mainly), it will come as no surprise that I’ve seen a lot of drama go down and before I begin, I would like to clarify, I know that these communities barely make up a portion of the reader-scape, but I also believe that it is these communities that come out with the most discourse on things that really do concern us as readers and the impact we make. Over the 5 years exposure I have accumulated, I’ve been part of a reactionary way of community that understandably only ever concludes with polarity. I refuse to be a part of such a system, and so you find me on Substack here today.

When I first began withdrawing from instagram,

Tiffany Chu

and I came up with the term “Instergy” trying to explain the dramatics. So while there was often discourse that was important, there was also a lot of discourse that was useless. I bring this up, because this word is important as we explore the dilemma of; is being a reader political?

I am someone deeply unnerved by the systems in place today, and especially how they function and in turn produce a response from us, the normal people. This is relevant because, by the end of this post, I want to have accomplished explaining not only why reading is powerful, but that how we do it matters and impacts the world in its own subtle way. It is also relevant because instergy, plays a big role in the question we want to answer today.

This should be the first hint you get at what sort of reader I am, and hence what sort of Substack this is, but before we get any further…

Why am I writing this?

• I want to give potential readers a foundation to decide if my Substack is for them

• I want to introduce a more nuanced perspective on the dilemma; “is reading political?’

• I want to emphasise why how we read matters and can change the potential of the normal person

The Dilemma

A dilemma by definition is when we are put in a position where we have to choose between unsatisfactory choices. So from the beginning, we have to understand that whatever conclusion we come out with, the answer is going to be costly. This is why when we look at the social media discourse on this matter, we realise that both sides of the dilemma have a shaky foundation on which they build their stances on, they refuse to accept the cost at either side. A huge part of what makes up instergy is a lack of proper research on the discourse that takes place. People only engage with knowledge they’ve seen on the platform, often opinion based, and lacking factual basis.

The question of whether reading is political, or not, has been something that resurfaces every so often, and then dies with no real conclusion… just drama and fights between creators, or opinions on the ethics of reading a certain book.

On one side, let’s look into the readers who don’t want to make things political. In essence these readers don’t want to make exceptions to freedom of speech, nor do they want to make a stifling environment for others by peer pressuring the community into accepting only a certain kind of book. On the other side, people who do not want to dismiss that reading is political, are conscious of how the books we read are products that benefit someone, and so who is selling what and profiting off of it is important when we live in a system that favours a certain kind of demographic over the others.

And they’re both right.

Freedom of speech, and exposing ourselves to different narratives helps us develop solutions and strengthens how we can bring everyone justice. Testing our knowledge, where it is coming from, who it is overlooking, how can it become better, is reliant on knowing the other side. However, knowledge is a privatised product in todays world. What we read is being sold to us, and who is selling what knowledge is too important to overlook.

How do you navigate that then?

Well at the very least, we need to first establish a common ground. People on both sides of the dilemma, or even on the spectrum of these presented extremes, just want to read and not feel like bad people for doing so. That’s valid, and essential, but unfortunately, now impossible.

Factors that effect our decision

Now that we have somewhat of a glance at what is being said, can we really blame books, writers, and readers for this situation in the first place? Well yes, if you only want to look at the results of the actual issue. Not quite, if we look at the real cause.

The Systems and Us

Writing is an art form. I consider all books to hold importance for the writer, whether we are willing to accept the merit of said book or not. It is this importance that the writer feels for the book that to me also makes the two inseparable. The dilemma of should the art be separated from the artist is one we can delve into in another post in this series, but for now this is important because you cannot stop bad books or people from existing because this is partially a subjective topic.

It is not the production of art that makes us stand at this crossroads, it is the privatisation and means of distribution that impacts our decision. Authors who choose to traditionally publish are at the mercy of the publishing industry, and so have to conform to some extent.

In a very interesting research article called Changing Conditions for Innovation in Different Arts and Science by Richard Whitley and Jochen Glasser, these authors talk about how artists who are overly reliant on non-artists, like say writers and the publishing industry, have a harder time getting unconventional works published. Art then becomes not for art’s sake, but for the sake of consumers. Books become an economic product, before they are… books. Literature then is no longer about the time, and its current problems, but about what can be best packaged and sold more.

A different criteria altogether goes into what books are given out which isn’t an objective or even subjective marker of what a good book is. This criteria is also adopted by self-publishers then, because they want to make it big. This should frustrate us as readers who do not want to have to think about such nitty gritty of how books we read today come to be. The instergy that almost pollutes the social media reading communities, is a lack of recognition of how these systems have failed both parties.

We have managed to make literature more diverse by fighting this system somewhat, but this social reproduction, the strife to get these marginalised voices heard more in the industry; still points to an insufficient system that continues to do this unsatisfactorily. This makes a certain demographic more prone to profiting off the marginalised since it’s “easier” to get their voices heard that way instead.

This brings us to another important thing to look into.

Internal Politics

I’ve put my focus on talking about the external systems, as of yet, but it’s important to understand, like I said above, bad writers will exist. I don’t mean this in the sense that they are bad writers, rather that bad people will always also produce literature.

So external factors of this dilemma aside, a book and its contents are important to analyse when we talk about this debate as well, because the consumption of that book not only may provide you with perspective, but also could be profiting a writer causing harm. Your money is valuable, especially in an economy where every penny counts.

Good books can be written by bad people. These books can impact you positively, and still you might feel betrayed after finding out that your favourite book was written by an author who hates you.

It becomes tricky to then ask, should we still buy these books we like? Knowing they will fund someone harmful to you?

Reading is Political

Knowing the above, we cannot deny this, whether we want to accept it or not, reading is political. This discussion is lengthy, much more has to be said, but perhaps we can cover those things in other parts of the series. This is after all an ongoing discussion. For now, let’s come to a solution.

I have taken careful steps not to participate in reactive behaviour throughout this post, this is important to me because I think a big part that stops us from finding one, comes from the instergy induced response we have to the matter. It is hardly a faulty reaction, if it is partly stemming from the ways in which the system has failed these readers, even if they fail to see the depth of the problem.

So to conclude, why do we need a generalised solution?

To me, it has felt wrong, to have generalised solutions for humanity’s problems. Often, because we’re all so beautifully different from each other, and our circumstances vary greatly.

To me books are the same, and not one solution fits all problems. The question of ‘is reading political?’ is so deep in itself because it explores so many sub-questions.

I try to examine the following two questions when I am stuck with this dilemma:

1. Is the book solely for entertainment purposes?

Not all books hold intellectual value, they can be for leisure, and thats perfectly ok. But if it’s so, and there’s something that makes the book controversial due to harmful behaviour from the author — for me thats a pass.

I can invest in another leisure book, and gain entertainment from another piece of literature.

However, if its the content of the book that is harmful, and I am truly interested in reading it — I like to use question two’s answer to tackle this.

2. Does the book try to share intellectual input?

If a book does however contain a controversial take, and is trying to educate on it, then I’m a curious person who isn’t hesitant to pirate a book for knowledge’s sake. (Piracy is probably another post in the series we can discuss with more depth).

Knowing the otherside is an important aspect of learning for me, even when such literature can be scary to tread through, or hard to digest. I don’t have to believe in it to read it, it only serves to keep me more informed, and helps me understand things I would like to tackle.

As for leisure books with harmful content that i can’t seem to resist my curiosity from, I do the same. I make it into a reflective exercise to explore why I feel the need to read this, what can this tell me, what am I trying to understand?

Readers are the Power

Grass-root solutions are important, and the way in which we stay informed and read shapes us. Literature, whether harmful or not, cannot be the problem if the consumers are critical thinkers. This is why I do not believe in policing creators, and instead like to keep the focus on consumers to tackle these problems. If consumers have a certain response, that does not benefit this ‘harmful’ content, then the literature being produced will have to change to fit the economic agenda. We would only need to ensure that the negative critique, isn’t in turn economically beneficial. This is especially relevant as we see the growing trend of purposeful negative acts as marketing ploys to attract negative attention and in turn economic benefit. All reliant on instergy.

This is why it’s also important to read controversial literature. Without exposing ourselves to the other narratives we cannot exercise our thinking skills. By enclosing ourselves in an echo chamber, which algorithmic social media norms ensure, we actively work against nurturing our critical thinking. This increases are susceptibility to lower standards of literature, and non-solution oriented reactions (instergy) that don’t fix the problems in the system, but as we said earlier, ends up benefiting these systems even when we are unhappy with them.

Accepting the political nature of books today is essential, and then working around this to gain knowledge and benefit, is essential in becoming more media literate readers that will not accept bad quality, injustice, or a mockery of ourselves as consumers.

Phew. I did it. My first post ✉️

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