The Plight of Zoomers: An Empty Tradition

I want to state before anything that this article is the beginning of an idea. I have not thought this out fully. As a matter of fact, it is uniquely difficult for me to do so as I am a Zoomer. I have only my own experiences to go on, and those are quite limited. However, what I have seen and witnessed compels me to write this anyway. 

The impetus for this article came from a friend’s recent experiences reading The Iliad. He had decided one day to read the ancient texts of Western Literature. I listened to this decision with some bemusement because I know that the works of Homer are not the most pleasurable of reading. While the epic poems are considered foundational texts of the West, their style of writing is admittedly boring for a modern audience.

I cautioned my friend against doing a cold reading. In order to understand these works, you really need a guide. Whether that be footnotes or a professor, you need to someone who can navigate these texts to arrive at their ever elusive meanings. Without an understanding of the context, only but the most superficial of elements will fly right over your head. That being said, my friend wanted to do this anyway, and I wished him luck. 

A few months later, the topic came up again, and I asked him how it was going. He said he got next to nothing from the work, and he had been bored the entire time. He had to go look up a summary because he couldn’t bring himself to finish it. While perhaps not unexpected, this outcome was still somewhat shocking for me. My friend was not the most erudite of scholars, but he was fairly capable in his own right. That he got virtually nothing from the experience opened my eyes. 

Since then, I’ve been ruminating on how important cultural background is to understanding the meaning of a text. Symbols, norms, and even basic beliefs are all a part of the foundation of any story. They are the structure which undergirds any narrative. Without this, stories couldn’t communicate any real meaning. 

Roland Barthes might have pronounced the Death of the Author, but who says I can’t take his words as satire? Even he relies on an implicit understanding of the time and the place. Otherwise, words just become gibberish. 

But here is where this story takes a dark turn. Having gone through college, I can count on one hand those capable of reading Ancient Greek Literature. It’s not that the texts are gone. I can easily check one out of my library. But there are precious few among my generation who can understand them. Even to the attentive reader like my friend, they are just too inaccessible. So, these texts gather dust and are left unattended. 

I can already hear the criticisms. Some might claim that there are only a tiny minority of people who could ever read them anyway. I think that’s true to a certain extent. But there I was in college, which in of itself was supposed to be one of the most elite institutions in the known world. I was at a place that was supposed to be of great learning, developing sharp young minds for the future. If anything, I was at a place where you should see an overabundance of this tiny minority. 

This is not a criticism of my college as I have noticed the problem is widespread. In every educational institution I have ever seen, there are similar issues. And this isn’t just a matter of Ancient Greek Literature (if only it were so simple). But tell me, how many people still read Shakespeare as a genuine artistic text? I mean, among the Zoomers. There are a few older people here and there, but certainly none among my generation. 

For my cohort, Shakespeare was the time in high school when we had to read a confusing play for a few weeks. None of us understood anything being said, at least not beyond a surface level. And no one remembered anything by the time the course was done.

You still might not be convinced, but I can’t help but think these texts were important at some point. After all, they made it into the curriculum somehow. They must’ve been considered valuable to someone somewhere. 

I can’t help but think that, at some point, the texts got handed down, but none of the things that made them living. We got the words but not the meaning to understand them. And so to us, they are just dusty old books. Some of you might not see the problem in this, but I do. The rot eats the oldest wood first. 

There has to be someone to keep the torch lit, otherwise it goes out. If my learned friend cannot read The Iliad (and he is part of a tiny minority who is even interested to begin with), then who exactly is going to bring these texts forward to the next generation? I can easily see most of these “classic” works being forgotten in the next sixty years. You might be surprised at that, but given my own experiences, I think there’s a real possibility. 

But that’s not even what worries me most. If these texts, once handed down for generation upon generation, a tradition spanning entire civilizations, was not given to the Zoomers, then what was? I want to know. Just how much is left?