Our generation of readers may literally be the last indigenous people of the age of writing. Pure text carriers, including e-reading, are rapidly being replaced by videos and various emerging information media. The post-writing era, with teletext, videos and even virtual reality as its basic models, has greatly reduced the difficulty and threshold of information acquisition by means of technology. In such an environment, it is difficult for us to be calm in reading, and instead, we are getting more confused and suffocated in the accumulation of information. What we can be sure of, however, is that we are more in need of serious discussion on what reading is at the threshold of such an era.
In essence, reading with universal spiritual value is human, centering on the construction of spiritual world and the practice of intellectual life of humans -- no matter it is about natural sciences or humanities or social sciences. Its essential feature is: to maintain the temperature that triggers understanding and empathy while removing the threshold of formal expression brought about by technical terms.
Another concern is the complex connection between reading and writing. In short, there are continuous echoes and closed loops between reading and writing: any writing starts from reading, while any reading is an internal transformation from information to knowledge and from knowledge to thinking, and writing is merely the public expression of this transformation process. Furthermore, we must recognize that reading is the fundamental prerequisite for the human spiritual life to be a community, despite the inevitable contradictions and disputes. Only through reading, can individuals across time and space complete the communication of the spiritual world through expression. It is in this sense that, for any reader, serious and profound reading is not only the receipt of information and knowledge, but also the encounter with another spiritual world. The value of reading, which may not entirely rely on the carrier of words, is reflected in the successive spiritual ties and intellectual construction.
The fundamental value of reading lies in its enabling life experience and spiritual world of different time-space dimensions to be integrated into a civilized community. Thus we can rediscover “reading”. Reading that we are impelled to do by curiosity about the natural world establishes the natural order of the spiritual world, catches on the rules and mechanisms behind and ensures that we have stable expectations for the future experience. This is a process of constantly erasing fear, anxiety and the sense of strangeness. To humanize nature can help obtain the courage to face nature. In contrast, reading about the history, humanities and society of shared civilization reveals the inner texture of the spiritual community across time and space, so that we can keep an insight into human nature and develop warmth for civilization and the living world.
After analyzing the fundamental value of "reading" and its mechanism of shaping the spirit, it is not difficult to find that serious and intellectual reading does not lie in the form of its carrier, but in the attitude and consciousness of facing the spiritual community. This attitude constitutes careful examination based on immersed leisure while maintaining the consciousness of actively integrating into and constructing the spiritual community.
It is the proper meaning and the nature of reading to shape understanding with knowledge, to construct a standpoint with thinking and to constantly shape spiritual life with intellectual training.
Cheng Lesong, professor of Department of Philosophy, Peking University