1958. A Nebraska editor creates a series of study guides for Shakespeare plays that sell over 58,000 copies in six months. The editor’s name? Clifton Hillegass.
By 1964, his company was selling over one million books from the “Cliff’s Notes” series annually, summarizing everything from Greek myth to classic literature.
It took much less time to finish one of these pamphlets than to read the actual novel or play, and they were categorized to show all the things that teachers cared about in school - main points, character motivations, plot patterns and twists.
To use these notes was clearly defined as “cheating”, because you “didn’t read the book/play/whatever”, and those who did got something you missed. But the details of that advantage were not clearly defined, leading to slackerish reasoning from students:
“…so, like, a thing happened in an old book and it means something and you want me to tell you what it means, and, like, this yellow and black book told me exactly what you want to hear so, like, how is that cheating? You wanted the answer, right? What does it matter where I got it from?”
Teachers began to be more clever when assigning research papers, asking for direct quotes and subtleties that they knew the notes had overlooked. To do this, they had to purchase copies of the notes for themselves, further driving up profits at the publishing house.
My mother was a teacher, so I was never allowed to even bring a copy of a Cliff’s Notes book into the house. I figured it was similar to having a parent who was, say, a chef at a Michelin starred restaurant and trying to sneak a frozen TV dinner into the fridge. Thus, in every grade I read the entirety of every book assigned, figuring out on my own main points, character motivations, and plots in each one.
So much of my being a kid in school was wondering if I would ever use what I was learning in “real life”.
Do I believe that all that reading made some kind of difference?
I think so.
Can I define what that difference was?
Let’s find out.
Blockbuster Video opened its first VHS video rental outlet in 1985: by 2004 over nine thousand of their stores existed: families would mill about them on Friday nights while waiting for their Domino’s™ pizzas to be made, hoping that someone would return the film that they really wanted to see so they wouldn’t have to watch the ones they were carrying around.
Even in the smallest locations their video library was somewhat impressive, combining current hits as well a wide range of classic movies, including filmed versions of many school-assigned books; these took even less time to consume than their Cliff’s Notes counterparts.
This practice was also considered “cheating” in school, because not only did you not read the actual book, you were too lazy to engage in the criminal yet comprehensive use of Cliff’s Notes.
It must have been easy for teachers to spot the glaring errors produced by this non-study method: over-detailed explanations of what the characters were wearing, or the gigantic gaps in narrative from 300 page books being adapted and condensed to 90-minute-or-less popular entertainments.
By this time I was out of school and had no chance to try this time-saving method. It would definitely have not been allowed, even if the film in question were a mini-series. In Prime Time. On PBS.
Other societal advancements - the pocket calculator, the computer, were heralded as the harbingers of eternal ignorance by the more luddite-leaning. (Personally, I was mostly interested in spelling cheeky words with numbers on the calculator (revealed when I turned it upside down) and playing text-based role playing games on the computer.)
Yet soon, each was adopted as a “forward thinking tool”, and within years quietly became regarded as “everyday technology”.
Am I eternally ignorant? Gee, I hope not.
But I do rely on a calculator (app) for quick answers, and though I work on computers all day long, those Excel™ charts I have to deal with would be much less efficient if they were all in pencil.
And now the smartphone, and AI, digital miracles that at last respond to us the same way technology worked on Star Trek™! Voice activated and benevolently omniscient, they see all and seem to know at least most-of-all, changing not only the world we live in now, but how we see the past (eg. any any old movie where the entire plot hinged on a missed phone call).
But AI engines can do much more than summarize information: they can, like a genie from a magic lamp, write entire research papers of any length, in any language, style, or voice in seconds, completely negating any need to waste time watching a whole movie, or consulting a synopsis, or finishing a novel.
While certainly impressive, the question on everyone’s lips is
“That’s cheating, right? I mean, you’re not “doing the work” or whatever.”
Where is the line drawn? Surrounded by “tools” that “make things more convenient” for us, when do we all become the dinner party hosts that tell everyone they cooked the meal when it was catered? How long before the achievements we claim credit for are actually the product of curated consumerism rather than cultivated skill? When will the questions we’re asking no longer need us because they can answer themselves?
Aha. It has occurred to me why reading was so important.
Reading a book is not just knowing what the book is about. Reading is an experience - pace and meter, balance of what is currently on the page and what has yet to be revealed, even the typeface… all elements of a tangible exercise that is mirrored by anyone else engaging with the work, but never exactly duplicated.
Being able to complain to one another how boring a section was, or how incredibly surprised you were to find out “who did it”, is not available to those who get to the end of the race without running it.
The books I read, albums I listened to, and movies I watched taught me that life, the point of it all, lies on the pages, or deep in the grooves, or on every flickering frame of film, and the joy of experiencing art cannot be equalled by an explanation of it. It gave me the patience to create art, which does take time and effort and focus and resources, but then stands as a testament to all that went into it.
These new technologies are possibly the Final Horsemen of our Dumbpocalypse, as we give up forever understanding how to make proper change from a dollar, or memorize a phone number, or diagram a sentence. Future “book clubs” may feature oversized glasses of wine shared among groups only discussing the prompts they typed into ChatGPT. “Hard work”? “Ethics”? The “joy of mastering tasks”? Sure, they’re around here somewhere, they probably just stopped off for a bite to eat - they should be here any minute.
So we will fear the smartphones and shun the AI and keep them away from our kids for a while, but sooner than we think, these new technologies are going to be shrugged off as commonplace. In the meantime, there will be a few who figure out how to use these tools to push art and science further, to begin their work at a place it may have taken a lifetime to reach, and then build upon that to create all-new experiences. That, won’t be cheating at all.
Besides, think of all the things we can do with the time we save.
I could read a book.
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