'Audiobooks are not reading': a Microcosm of Conservative Outrage

You sat down to read a book. Cracking open a heavy tome feels good. The weight in your hands, the feel of the pages, reading is an experience. Then computers got involved. Now you're reading text on screens: laptops, ipads, etc. These devices don't have the same experience and to a certain extent strain your eyes. The act of reading has been diminished. Then computers jumped the shark. Now they read to you instead of you reading yourself. Like a toddler being comforted with their favorite children's story by their parent. Reading has not been diminished, it has been destroyed. Yet, somehow a collection of adults find enjoyment in listening to their computers read to them. Fine, you say, it doesn't bother me, just don't pretend its reading. A few years later you hear about people "reading" hundreds of books a year. Impossible, you think, they're listening to those books, and probably at accelerated speeds. How can anyone call this reading? How can anyone call this fair?

What is reading anyway?

The verb read appears to originate from a word meaning (simplifying) "to persuade" or "to learn."

Middle English reden, ireden, "to counsel, advise," also "to read," from Old English rædan, gerædan (West Saxon), redan, geredan (Anglian) "to advise, counsel, persuade; discuss, deliberate; rule, guide; arrange, equip; forebode; to read (observe and apprehend the meaning of something written), utter aloud (words, letters, etc.); to explain; to learn through reading; to put in order."

-- etymonline

Handwritten words in ancient manuscripts and texts were particularly taxing to read for a number of reasons. ... Hence a reader had to pick out words (a combination of seeing, identifying, choosing, and selecting) from a wall of text before the piece could be read.

-- Mari-Lou A

Let us not pretend that a cursory investigation of non-primary internet sources counts as research. However, it delivers an important point: the verb read has, like pretty much every word, changed with time. There is then an obvious counterargument to the above claim that listening to an audiobook is not reading. That is, that the verb read is undergoing a cultural shift, language is adapting.

The first microcosm of conservatism is in objection to this claim. A language purist would reject this idea, saying that the verb read should not meet the demands of the culture it is surrounded by. History makes it clear this is a losing battle. One need only know the definition of etymology to understand that the meanings of words will change whether you like it or not. Nevertheless, the resistance to this change is fundamentally a conservative principle.

On the other hand, why should a person who listens to an audiobook call it reading? This is a matter of personal experience. If listening to the audiobook gives the perception (the feeling) of having read the book, then from that experience it is reasonable to call it reading. Likewise, some will listen to an audiobook and feel that is very different from traditional reading, and they would be inclined to not equate the two. Why then do people insist that listening to an audiobook is not reading?

Ego injury

Not to be confused with narcissistic injury which is albeit a bit harsh for the present question. Regardless, there is an emotional investment in reading being traditional. Using the visual senses to ingest and consume the written word is considered a harder task than listening. It feels as though the person who generated the audio, the reader, has done the hard phonetic work. In what sense is the listener doing any of this hard work? How dare they perceive their experience as reading when they have taken a shortcut.

This argument from toil is probably also why most people consider braille reading without a second thought. Well of course it! Deciphering and processing braille is a hard task, the brain is really grooving. Hence, those who read traditionally want their efforts to be rewarded and not devalued by the audiobook listeners.

Elitism

Since audiobooks are here to stay some degree of elitism creeps in. Whether it be from the conservative desire to maintain the proper definition of read or the ego injury involved in audiobooks being too easy the consequence is the same. The traditional reader is better because they read Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series the old-fashioned way. They suffered through book 10 like everyone else and didn't cheat it with 2.0x speed through the boring slow parts. A conservative ingroup forms around those who agree that traditional reading is what reading really is. Why people join this ingroup is multifaceted, and it is a mistake to assume that the two above reasons are the only possible reasons. Regardless, the ingroup is inherently conservative. It resists the change of audiobooks and tries to impose either restrictions or malice on the outgroup.

This is a particularly interesting microcosm of this effect, because strictly speaking there is nothing stopping an otherwise perfectly progressive person from having an ego injury involving reading. They can fall in line with an entirely conservative perspective on the world. Moreover, there is an argument to be made that diminishing the efforts of listening to an audiobook is ableist. Why must the person who struggles with visually consuming a book be forced to use braille when they much prefer listening? Here is where the ingroup typically makes the fuzzy exceptions: "Well not them of course, the disabled don't count." Not unlike a leftist space that forgets transmen actually exist.

Is this a rant or an analysis?

Until this point I've attempted to hold off on moral judgment, but I think you can read between the lines. Yes, it's true, I think listening to audiobooks is reading. I am morally against the ingroup formed in rejection of this claim and do view it as an immoral conservative ideology. However, it is a fascinating microcosm of many different arguments and confusions faced in the public sphere.

For example, modern conservatives love to object that progressives can't define woman. If listening is reading, what's next, your Gen AI is reading by downloading text? Defining woman is a difficult task for a progressive because it requires a great deal of critical thought about both the complexities of sex (in particular intersex individuals) and the complexities of gender (in particular the performance of gender). Yet, understanding all the minutiae is difficult and boring, and why bother when traditional womanhood is something you are emotionally invested in.

Another example is post hoc rationalization. The modern conservative will claim that transwomen do harm to traditional women, particularly in high school or college sports. Likewise, listening to audiobooks is bad for the youth, because of the current literary crisis. Both of these arguments are interesting because there is a problem here we do deeply care about. Yes, we want women to have equal opportunities especially in their developmental years, but where exactly is the connection that transwomen are a hindrance? Yes, we want kids to be literate, but where exactly is the connection that audiobooks are a hindrance? I conjecture that the immoral conservative ideology finds a rejection of traditional values it dislikes then post hoc rationalizes this position by reaching for the nearest plausible explanation.

An ode to conservatism

Let it be known that a conservative ideology is not by its nature immoral. Indeed, one could argue that vaccines were a conservative ideology for a while. It is only a recent populist change against a perceived elitist class (scientists) and argued from a place of fear (conspiracy really) that vaccines should not be mandated. Having stability in a morally good cultural value is itself a moral good.