Should We Write?

Traditionally, books have been known as one of the most popular tools to transmit ideas to change lives and fill minds. Small wonder why the Bible and the Koran can appeal to a great majority of the population in the world. However, looking back to the early history, there existed a time when some of the greatest moral teachers had a distaste for books and took pleasure in the art of conversation. I have in mind Socrates, Jesus, and the Buddha. Why were they so reluctant to articulate their ideas across pages of blank sheets? If books are inferior to speeches, why would their disciples go against their teachings?

If these moral teachers found books offending, it was perhaps because the problem of books lies not in their inability to offer knowledge, but rather in its lack of responses. Unlike discussions and debates, books can only be accompanied by solitude that one can only contemplate pages of thought-provoking ideas in his bed alone. Discussions, on the other hand, are mutual. The rhythm of a conversation makes no allowance of dead periods, because the presence of our companion prompts us to offer a response, therefore making us more liable to suspect the value of silence. Even one of the greatest poets John Milton deprecates the value of writing,

"... many books
Wise men have said are wearisome; who reads
Incessantly, and to his reading brings not
A spirit or judgement equal or superior,
(And what he brings, what needs he elsewhere seek)
Uncertain and unsettled still remains,
Deep-versed in books and shallow in himself."

However paradoxical Milton appears, he conspires to cast aside our intellectual faith in books and favour a trust in conversation. Reading would become pointless if our minds fail to submit to the rigours of rational examination. He seems to suggest that a book, like religion, might eventually reveal itself as an authority, that it must be immune to challenges and criticisms, hence closing our minds off to new ideas and opinions.

Milton is not alone. The French philosopher and essayist Michel de Montaigne severely condemns writing as well:

"The most fruitful and natural exercise of the mind, in my opinion, is conversation; I find the use of it more sweet than of any other action of life; and for that reason it is that, if I were now compelled to choose, I should sooner, I think, consent to lose my sight, than my hearing and speech. The Athenians, and also the Romans, kept this exercise in great honour in their academies; the Italians retain some traces of it to this day, to their great advantage, as is manifest by the comparison of our understandings with theirs. The study of books is a languishing and feeble motion that heats not, whereas conversation teaches and exercises at once."

What Montaigne suggests is that books, unlike conversation, fail to exercise our minds. It deprives us of the ability to think and enforces us to take in whatever we read, removing us from the weight we necessarily confront during a conversation. Montaigne goes on further,

" and who can do nothing but by book, I hate it, if I dare to say so, worse than stupidity. In my country, and in my time, learning improves fortunes enough, but not minds; if it meet with those that are dull and heavy, it overcharges and suffocates them, leaving them a crude and undigested mass."

Books, according to Montaigne, belongs to the tradition of learning. It allows us to be able to recite verses of poetry and literature without being subject to rational scrutiny. It undermines our independence of thought and imaginative vision, inculcating in us a sense of obedience rather than a spirit of free thinking. Most authors are easily taken as objects of worship, rather than reserving our right to scrutinise what they say, we naively condemn our own intelligence and marvel at the difficult texts they are capable of delivering, falsely seeing them as hallmark of wisdom and excellence. Only through conversation, we are able to articulate sophisticated ideas in ordinary everyday language which allows us to offer criticisms and prompt others to give back direct responses.

Little wonder why teenagers, who thoroughly investigate Milton's The Lost Paradise and inherit the wisdom of Montaigne, refuse to read nowadays. It becomes obvious why Plato only agreed to write in the form of dialogues because it is only through dialogues that leave room for free enquiry and unbiased evaluation of evidence. Are we then to abandon the tradition of writing and diligently master the art of conversation? Does reading make us obedient drones rather than creative originals?

But Montaigne and Francis Bacon offered us a solution. They invented the form of essays to articulate what was previously thought unknown, difficult philosophical ideas, because essays aim at appealing to a wide range of readers in the most passable language. They allow us to expose to what is rigorously discussed in the academia and read it with fluidity and clarity. Moreover, essays also ward off all the unnecessary academic jargons which lay impassable to us. They mitigate the tension between writing and conversation and compensate what can only be originally achieved by conversation.

Another benefit of writing is that writing is largely based upon rewriting. It cuts away all the dead periods which occasionally happen in conversation. It gives us room for reorganisation, presenting our ideas in a coherent, logical manner, and articulating them in beautifully balanced phrases. Those who condemn writing may be due to their ignorance of the inevitable link of persuasiveness and beauty. One of the reasons of why most great quotes and poetries do not suffer loss of our memory is because these great masters compose them in such an aesthetic logic that pleases our minds. They are aware of the commonly neglected value of beauty. Logic and reason alone cannot convince our intelligent minds. It is through beauty that wisdom can penetrate through our souls and liberate us from the dullness and boredom of most intellectual arguments which might otherwise slip away from us easily. Moreover, writing does not suffer from the limitations of corrections and additions which one ought to make even in front of the most patient companion.

So why didn't Socrates, Jesus, and the Buddha write? Perhaps because they were aware of the insufficiency of writing. But writing should not be condemned merely because they didn't do so. Though conversation promotes active participation in rational enquiry and unbiased evaluation of evidence, writing allows a different way to present arguments which conversation is no match. For those who write, please write beautifully. As for readers, read not just with logic and reason, but also with an aesthetic eye.

W