We’re Entering the New Dark Ages

Summary

Mary Harrington interviews James Marriott about his argument that society is becoming post-literate: not unable to read, but increasingly less practiced and confident with long-form text as moving images and short videos become dominant.

Marriott points to several signs of decline. A US time-use study found that leisure reading fell by about 40% over two decades; a third of British adults reportedly said they had stopped reading for pleasure; and an OECD report found literacy rates declining or stagnating in many developed countries. He also describes teachers encountering a “400-word wall,” where some students struggle to sustain attention beyond a short passage. Marriott and Harrington connect these trends to television, smartphones, and short-form video, arguing that images are easier to consume than the cognitively demanding work of reading.

Drawing on media theorists such as Walter Ong and Marshall McLuhan, Marriott argues that communication media shape how people think and organize society. A culture grounded in print, he says, encourages more abstract, cumulative, and evidence-based reasoning. More emotionally immediate, personality-driven visual communication can intensify tribalism and political passions.

Marriott links the expansion of print and literacy—from the early spread of printing to the eighteenth-century “reading revolution”—to the Enlightenment, the circulation of ideas, and the growth of democratic participation. In his account, literacy helped people beyond the political elite learn about their rights and contribute to public debate.

The conversation complicates a simple contrast between an illiterate past and a literate modernity. Medieval scholars worked with fewer books but often studied them deeply, using trained memory and visual aids in manuscripts. Much of the past’s oral culture—songs, gossip, and spoken knowledge—has left little written record. By contrast, enormous amounts of information are digitally stored today, but mostly outside people’s own memories. Marriott suggests that both conditions—remembering little and having everything recorded—may make memorable, striking personalities especially influential.

Marriott cites Nayib Bukele as an example of a leader who uses striking visual imagery and social media to build personal authority. He also points to Donald Trump, Narendra Modi, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Viktor Orbán, and Vladimir Putin. He argues that the appeal of visual politics is not confined to the right, even if right-wing media and populist figures were early adopters.

Harrington raises the possibility that an apparently effective ruler might seem preferable to a distracted electorate. Marriott rejects monarchy or autocracy as a sound remedy: modern states are too complex to depend on a single leader, and unchecked power brings serious risks. He sees charismatic personal rule as a threat to democracy.

Both speakers are pessimistic about reversing communication technologies or the political changes associated with them. Marriott’s individual response is to cultivate “cognitive resistance,” for example by deliberately making time for sustained reading. He doubts this will be easy or universal, and worries that universities and other educated institutions are also moving away from reading.

The conversation ends with the possibility that society may divide into a small group that maintains demanding intellectual habits and a larger population shaped by short-form media—or that even the educated will eventually be swept along.

Presenters and Contributors

• Mary Harrington: Guest host
• James Marriott: Guest