In July, the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA) released a new survey on reading habits in the United States. Titled “Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America,” the survey chronicles the accelerating decline of literary reading between 1982 and 2002, and makes particular mention of the dramatic drop in literary reading in the 18 to 24-years-old age group.

The survey sparked a firestorm of debate and discussion over how to increase the percentage of readers as well as how to explain the benefits of reading to a public that is increasingly uninterested in books.

The reaction was a surprise from many of those outside of the literary world, but within there was very little shock. The survey was not a surprise, as the decline in reading had been well known and documented beforehand. Nevertheless, the public reaction of the literary world underscores the feeling by many that literary reading, literature in particular, has been increasingly under fire by the greater public. As the tangible benefits of science begin to dominate our daily lives, the intangible benefits of literature and the arts become more difficult to define. The public, always looking to make sure that public dollars are not wasted, have demanded to know the answer to one question: “Why read?”

In his preface to the survey, NEA Chairman Dan Gioia attempts to answer the question by tying reading to other desirable activities. The survey finds that people who read are more likely to do volunteer work, patron the arts and be socially active. In decrying the drop in reading, Gioia argues that “[a]s more Americans lose this capability, our nation becomes less informed, active and independent-minded.”

The irony is that this argument clearly violates the rules of logic. The fact that more people who read are socially active does not necessarily mean that there is a logical correlation between reading and desirable social activity.

As if to provide another answer, in his new book, Why Read?, Mark Edmundson argues the other side of the literary coin. If reading doesn’t make us better citizens, certainly it makes us better individuals. He summarized his main point in a recent New York Times article:

“They don’t read for information, and they don’t read for a beautiful escape. No, they read to remake themselves. They read to be socialized again, not into the ways of their city or village this time but into another world with different values.”

The problem is that reading doesn’t make us better individuals. There is a long-standing stereotype that the literary reading public is generally clean-cut and responsible. Nothing could be further from the truth. In reality, most readers are not particularly social. Throughout most literature we encounter the worst of society on a daily basis — murderers, thieves, pedophiles and all sorts of malcontents. How does this help to remake us? How does reading “Lolita”, “Macbeth” or “Things Fall Apart” make us better individuals? The simple and undeniable fact is that is doesn’t.

There is a truth that people like Gioia and Edmundson evade. That truth is that literature is useless. Like other art forms it will not ensure the survival of our species. It won’t make our dependence on fossil fuels go away. It won’t keep the Dow Jones above the 10,000 mark.

In its uselessness is its beauty. Humans are the only species that continually risk its own survival in order to discover, to explore, to find pleasure. We have evolved past simple Darwinian existence. Literature is part of that evolution. It is precisely because it is useless that it is one of the most human of all accomplishments. In the history of the world, literature is one of mankind’s greatest achievements. Through literature, we attempt to discover what it is to be human by creating something only a human could create. Learn about ourselves from ourselves.

It’s time we stop playing this game. It’s time we stop trying to apply useful value to a useless art. It’s time we acknowledge that literature won’t make us better people, won’t make us better citizens, won’t provide for the defense and well being of our family. Literature has a lone purpose: Teaching us about our own humanity.

Charles Parsons ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in literature.