For subscribers
Is the decline of reading making politics dumber?
As people read less they think less clearly, scholars fear.
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Increasing literary sophistication seems to lead to increasing political sophistication. There will also be other losses from a reading decline, says the writer.
ST PHOTO: KUA CHEE SIONG
The Economist
Follow topic:
The experiment was simple; so too, you may have thought, was the task. Students of literature at two American universities were given the first paragraphs of Bleak House by Charles Dickens and asked to read and then explain them.
In other words: Some students reading English literature were asked to read some English literature from the mid-19th century. How hard could it be?
