Among the faithful dead in the last refuge of civilisation

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Literacy crisis: Americans today are outright refusing to read; gambling now more common than books in the former US. {Rose Horowitch, The Atlantic 8 July}

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/08/reading-crisis-postliterate-age/687618/?gift=9FZn7jkTomfZUUZKAohjmj-cCDVI01zjt7XQQzsljuM&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

A new Dark Ages is taking shape, and that is not hyperbole but probably an understatement. Consider this anecdote, FTA: 

Adult-literacy scores have also dropped: Nearly 30 percent of American adults cannot paraphrase or make inferences from a multipage text. In 2017, that number was less than 20 percent.

That is a staggering decline in less than a decade. Nine years is not even a blip in the course of modern civilisation. The figure is so extraordinary that I can scarcely wrap my mind around it, so I shall not attempt to do so any further at the moment.

The scariest part of the decline in reading for pleasure is that it is being witnessed across all demographics. The youngest generations are the least inclined to read and the most tech-addled, as one might expect, but only an estimated 38 per cent of Americans read a novel last year. Is it any coincidence that this is occurring at the same time anti-intellectualism is running amok and a narcissistic clown has returned to the White House after failing spectacularly the first time around?

Decades of vapid popular culture, political gaslighting that convinced people to oppose their own interests, and immersion in technologies designed to fragment attention have combined to produce a society that no longer practises critical thinking. A kind of mass zombification is underway, and I want out of this timeline and away from everyone in it. It is not the sort of life I wish to live, nor the sort of society in which I wish to live. #Murica.

FTA: Reading books is a workout for the attention span. The more you read, the easier it is to read, and the more you’re rewarded with new understanding. Eventually the process is more pleasurable than it is challenging. But as with physical exercise, the converse is true as well: The less you read, the more difficult it is to read, and the rockier the path to acquiring knowledge.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

The light we could not keep

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Survey: Trump voters sought protection from democracy itself — the heart of their choice. {Raw Story 5 July}

https://www.rawstory.com/abundance-democrats/

Perhaps for the entire history of this nation, it hath always been taken as an article of faith that the American people, whatever their given ideological bent, would forever live and die at the altar of democracy. In 21st century #Murica, however, it turns out democracy is not very popular anymore. To his perverse credit — though I hate using the word ‘credit’ even in a perverse context — Donald Trump saw this before anyone else, and capitalised. A decade later, there is almost no incentive for the GOP to be anything but an illiberal, far-right populist party, whilst at the same time a wave of illiberal hard-leftists stands poised to take over the Democratic Party. So, on both extremes — and the decided majority of Americans have drifted toward the extremes now, just look around — democracy is no longer enjoying great support with the rank-and-file. If somebody had shown me how this would play out twenty-five years ago, when democracy was still held as sacrosanct, I would have been stunned. In retrospect, it all makes sense: no matter how we advance technologically or otherwise, human beings by nature remain tribalistic creatures.

FTA: Lofgren then explained the study found 14 out of 21 participants responded negatively to a fundamental American value. He quoted a Wyoming woman named Sarah as telling researchers, "I don’t like the word democracy.”

"Let that sink in," the Salon writer urged. "It’s what many of us expected, but it’s still surprising to see it in print, given the almost phobic avoidance by major media, academia and think tanks of any discussion of whether Americans actually believe in the nation’s unofficial civic religion of democracy. It may also explain why ordinary, non-elite conservatives are untroubled by Donald Trump’s assertions that he would be “dictator on day one” or that he intended to 'terminate' parts of the Constitution. On the contrary, that’s what they want."

The study, Lofgren argued, found that what such Americans would prefer is protection of the beliefs they perceive as under attack by democracy itself.

linktr.ee/arthurnewhook

🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

Sir Winston Churchill on the reality of public opinion

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“There is no such thing as public opinion. There is only published opinion,” stated Winston Churchill—a remark that lands with eerie foresight in the age of dictatorial algorithms and mass hysteria, wherein opinion is made a merchandised trade, and the mob a marketplace. One may well conceive the old war-dog beholding the endless scroll of social babble, and judging—after his wonted fashion and without the least strain of hyperbole—that our civilisation had clean parted company with its wits.

Born on 30 November 1874 amidst the rolling fields of West Oxfordshire, and sprung of an American mother of notable grace and an English father of noble blood yet scant forbearance, Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill embodied a species of Englishman now almost extinct. A lover of cigars, whisky, and the English language in equal measure, he stood as the living antithesis of his nemesis, the teetotal vegetarian tyrant across the Channel. Churchill’s vices were human; his virtues, monumental.

By any reckoning, the twentieth century’s most formidable statesman—a relic of another age even whilst he lived, and yet utterly needful to his own time. In an era that prized shallow cries above substance, he wielded words as others wield artillery; and when civilisation hung by a thread, it was his voice—gravelled, resolute, and adamant—that held the rampart fast.

In today’s absurd universe, one with many echoes of the atmosphere that led to the Second World War, Churchill’s spectre is more needed than ever. Yet I discern much of his iron resolve in Volodymyr Zelensky: a witness that greatness, however blemished, once walked amongst mortal men, and that valour, when once uttered aloud, may yet ring forth with truth.

Copyright 2025, Arthur Newhook.

Has anything changed? Thoughts on the 60th anniversary of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing

AP

#OTD 1963: KKK terrorists perpetrate a bombing upon the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, AL, which resulted in the death of four children and inflicted injuries upon others. Sadly but tellingly, particularly since a certain Donald J. Trump entered the political arena with his venomous rhetoric, it hath been irrefutably demonstrated that the kind of mindset that impelled these Klansmen to commit such a heinous deed still persists; and is far more widespread than most of us have been willing to acknowledge or confess.

We all do recall the terror of June 17, 2015, when a white supremacist did slay nine congregants at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. America has scarcely progressed any further in terms of enlightenment regarding matters of race, and is just as prone to violence and deliberate ignorance as it was in 1963. If anything, in the era of Trump, we appear to be regressing, which is a genuine affront to the memory of all those innocent souls who suffered torment and perished solely due to the color of their skin. {CNN 9/15 - 60 years after 4 little girls were killed in a KKK attack on the 16th Street Baptist Church, memories of the lives that were taken live on} 

Copyright 2023, Arthur Newhook. @Sunking278 and @FloydEtcetera on TWITTER, and at the same handles on FACEBOOK. MASTODON - @ArthurNewhook@mastodon.world, and POST - @arthurnewhook.

Democrats should say 'no' to mindless populism

Another indicator that the GOP has completely given itself over to mindless populist boorishness. A/K/A mob rule: The opposite of actual leadership, to say nothing of common sense or humanity. No, somebody has to be the grown-ups in D.C. - A.N.

Copyright 2023, Arthur Newhook. @Sunking278 and @FloydEtcetera on TWITTER, and at the same handles on FACEBOOK. MASTODON - @ArthurNewhook@mastodon.world, and POST - @arthurnewhook.