Modern Prose and Ancient Inhibitions

Both amateurs and professionals write poor prose; in fact, students and professionals alike are afflicted with a neurotic need to avoid clarity and precision of thought. In the creation myths of all civilized countries, the exercise of human intelligence is displeasing to the gods; the beginning of civilization - which is necessarily at odds with nature - is always associated with sin. The universal difficulty in articulating feeling precedes consciousness because we are born into helpless dependence on our parents, who in order for us to survive and be fit for human society must often thwart our infantile inclinations. We cry out against their efforts to tame us and civilize us. Writing well which is a way of creating our personal uniqueness, is always an act of subconscious rebellion against society. We tend to discourage such rebellion in others and suppress it in our-selves. We prefer to think in cliches, and to demonstrate, through our bad grammar, bad logic, and general sloppiness of diction, that we are socially harmless because intellectually null. The ability to write seems to have declined through a voluntary careless acceptance of slack imprecision, so that our words and processes of thought become confused. A postliterate culture is not inconceivable; we are willmg our literacy gradually away through a voluntary loss of high literary skill The disappearance of literacy may well bring about the wreck of civilization. We must read attentively, and we must teach our students to read. We must rediscover the value of technique. We must take courage from the few brilliant writers among us and develop new literary modes.