Reading Books vs. Watching Movies: Perception of Intelligence
Should an avid reader be considered more intelligent than a movie buff? Monday and Sunday share their takes on the perceptions of both mediums.
MONDAY: I think it depends on what kind of intelligence, what kind of books, and what kind of movies. "Intelligence" is an occasional, contextual thing. Someone can be brilliant at math but terrible at writing. Someone can be brilliant at language while terrible at architecture. While there's general intelligence — which I think is both objectively measurable and matters a great deal in terms of one's success in life, or the success of a society — I don't think the issue is so clear when it comes to art. There are also cognitive issues which can make reading more difficult. I have a hard time reading books, but listening to them is a breeze, even if they’re on quite difficult subjects. There's something about the act of reading that causes me too much stress to continue for more than ten or fifteen minutes. While listening, though, I can easily pass an entire hour without a problem, and still pick up on everything. But I've known people who had trouble listening as well. I wouldn't call them less intelligent for that. I'd say that the kind of movie, or book, has much more to do with a person's "existential" intelligence than anything else. By "existential intelligence" I refer to Lovecraft's infamous statement:
"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents."
An existentially intelligent person correlates more of the contents of their mind than usual. The default mode of most humanity is comfort-seeking bigotry and bias. They're little better than animals. They don't want to be challenged in any way and don't want to ask any questions that might disturb their niche. To them, life is black and white, very little is questioned or even questionable, and their opinions are always right. Movies, like any art medium, can disturb this. And books, like any art medium, can also be nothing more than pablum. The question is the contents and the motivations behind it. Art is at its most elevating when it reveals something new, or draws new correlations between the known. It challenges and, through challenge, makes us grow, deepening and extending our view. This isn't to say all art needs to be challenging — there's obvious times for recreation and comfort, and I consume a lot of media of that nature — but the more people also like being challenged, the more I would trust them to be sincere about their confrontation with life. A parallel can be drawn between Buber's division of relationships into I/Thou and I/It. And I/Thou relationship is where the Thou or Other is treated with equal or greater gravity, and there's an openness to new information, to widening one's vision, or to correction. It isn't a relationship of projection, or stereo-typing, or superimposition. It is not merely utilitarian — it treats the Other as a separate reality, on equal footing. An I/It relationship, however, is one where everything but the Self is an object, and all objects are seen in utilitarian relationship to the Self rather than their own terms. It asks what can be acquired from something, rather than what that something really is. An I/Thou relationship with art is one where art is not desired for merely superficial ends, but for its potential to communicate something deeper. It doesn't matter if that art is a movie or book or song or anything else. One is open to what it has to say, not what end it meets or goal it serves. An I/It relationship only seeks reinforcement of the status quo. It reiterates what is already felt, restates what is already known and solidifies what is already accepted. It causes no change. The former is akin to physical exercise while the latter is akin to vegetating. The results are obvious. I/Thou and I/It apply to more than just people. They apply to the entirety of life. Challenging art asks us to be open and really see, rather than just be comforted or confirmed. Desiring this, I would say, is a sign of existential intelligence.
That said, it appears there’s evidence movies and T.V. are more harmful, mentally, than books, by far. Here’s some articles on Medium that give examples:
https://kwikbrain.medium.com/the-neurology-of-reading-fb4e29efa2b5
It would be surprising if reading books was such a comparatively beneficial past-time but had literally zero effect on intelligence.
If the data cited is correct, I’m having trouble coming up with a model where reading is on an equal cognitive footing with passive T.V. or movie watching, in terms of health results.
SUNDAY: Books and movies are both two forms of entertainment…but within that space the are basically apples to oranges—or maybe more aptly apples to tomatoes in comparison.
Books are generally the product of a single person—the author. They exist in one dimension—the written one (this is barring illustrations). Written stories have been around basically since writing began. They are entangled with the history of Human civilization.
Movies, however, are a more recent phenomena. You could say they are an extremely evolved version of a stage play, and you might have an argument there, but movies nowadays have far more components. Movies can be made by a few people to many thousands of people. You have the script, the written basis for it, and then you have everything visual, which need not actually exist in reality with the power of CGI. Then you have the sound—music, sound effects, and dubbing for other languages. There are far more moving parts (pun not intended) with making a movie than there are with a book.
In that sense, you could say there is more ‘craft’ on display in a movie than a book. A book is a demonstration of a person’s writing chops alone. A movie can show case the talent and ingenuity of many different professions (e.g. cinematography, editing, acting, music production) all acting in harmony to serve one goal. There’s literally more components to analyze and take apart.
So…from that perspective, you could say that a movie buff could be aware of more professions and technical crafts than an avid book reader. Does that make them more intelligent? Maybe, maybe not. To me, this is really about perception of both, and explaining it really comes back to one of my earlier observations—books/written media have been around basically since the dawn of Human society.
Not only that, the skill to read them was not at all ubiquitous throughout history and for a long while creating them was costly. Which is both to say that written media for the majority of Humanity has been an exclusive experience.
And to a degree, it still is—I won’t be able to enjoy a book written in a language I don’t understand, but I could get something out of a foreign language film with no subtitles. Words alone are actually quite demanding on those that try to partake in them. Not only do you have to be able to read each part, you have to have the mental focus to compose them into the concept they are trying to articulate, and then appropriately illustrate it in your mind’s eye. The reader is doing a great deal of the work in digesting the work to derive something from it.
Movies are much more effective at conveying their point in that regard. I don’t need to imagine based on a description on how a character looks or sounds: there they are. Everyone sees/hears the same thing (they could interpret it differently for sure). You could take that as being the junk food of the food world…or that it’s accessible and direct.
But, anyway.
I used to believe reading a bunch of books (especially classics) made me more ‘intelligent’ or made me seem more ‘smart’—I don’t believe that anymore. I think it’s an impression that used to have meaning/relate to the state of the world but now is inaccurate given how we’ve advanced as a society.
How do you view reading vs. watching movies?