By Raisa Anan
It is a no-brainer that reading is good for us. Especially in the age of AI, perhaps the best service one can do for themself is read. However, reading is a privilege that only a certain section of the population are privy to, who, most of the time are elites.
Allow me to elaborate. I come from a working class family. My father commutes to his work which takes him more than an hour, at 7 am every morning. He comes home at 7 pm. My mother toils in the kitchen, managing the house and keeping everyone and everything running. They do not have the time to read. I, a twenty-something woman pursuing an undergraduate degree in literature, with a part time job, have time to read.
Why?
Because I have things ready for me. I don’t have to cook and clean everyday after I go home. While I may not be an elite, but, I am privileged, because most days, I have at least some free time in my hands and decent enough headspace to get into reading. My father, who spends half of his day outside, does not have that luxury. My mother, who is constantly on her feet throughout the day, managing multiple tasks at once does not have that luxury. And that is true for most of the population.
In this capitalistic hellscape, time is rarely on our side. I, who has the opportunity to read at least 4 books a month now, may not have it tomorrow, when I enter the workforce and start working full-time. All around me, I see people who are struggling to make ends meet, who suffer at every step of the way just to put food on the table. For them, sitting down with a book and a cup of coffee is one of the wildest fantasies—when they barely have enough time to get a good night’s sleep.
Then who has the time to read?
The elites.
In my life so far, the only people I have seen read dedicatedly are my professors. They are masterminds of literature, each one of them a walking library. They talk about novel ideas, recite Shakespeare from the tips of their tongues, preach philosophy while admiring the lost art of reading. “Students these days do not read books.” And I agree. Even if they are from a privileged background they do not read—maybe out of laziness, maybe because the ambrosia of doom-scrolling is far more tempting.
Whatever the reason, it is undeniable that reading is a habit. It is a habit that requires time, patience, and the right headspace—a luxury most of us do not have. And by some luck, if one has the abundance of these, another factor crawls in—money.
You need money to buy books. In a third world country, cheap local prints are available but for the average working class, that is still an unnecessary expense when the price of regular groceries are sky high.
The other option is to read ebooks, which is not completely free either. Let’s say that you somehow manage to download free pdfs from a sketchy website. Is it really feasible to read ebooks all the time? Can our eyes really take the strain? I think not.
I am now fortunate enough to be in a position to buy physical books but in my teenage years I survived on ebooks purely, and that definitely took a toll on my eyes. So I can only imagine how stressful it might be for someone my parents’ age or older. And frankly, reading paper books is a completely different and euphoric experience—the crispness of the pages, their smell and the ability to scribble and annotate is something ebooks cannot ever measure up to.
I often hear some people say that they hate ebooks. They make a face when they say that—like it is unimaginable to read a soft copy of a book. I, who is a proficient reader of both ebooks and paperbacks, agree that physical books are superior, but also marvel at the privilege of these people. Everyone who has said that to me so far reads regularly, has a good collection, dare I say overwhelmingly good collection of books; and has the ability to set aside a separate hefty budget to buy them.
To them, I request: contemplate your privilege and entertain the thought that maybe those who read ebooks do not do so because they love staring at a screen emanating artificial light for hours, but because they do not have any other choice but to do so to quench their thirst for knowledge.
My thoughts digress but this is perhaps why the bourgeoisie, the top 1%, has control over the world. While we are busy typing prompts into a clanker and watching AI generated brain rot, the wealthy spend their time reading. The one who holds knowledge holds the power. Reading is the key to that power, the key to unlock a critical mindset, a mind that questions, debates, and defends. A mind that engages and creates, and the wealthy are on a mission to make knowledge and critical thinking an asset only their heirs can inherit.
This whole essay is a call to the privileged to acknowledge their privilege. It is not wrong to be privileged, but it is wrong to pose one’s own ideas and concepts as superior while failing to recognize the dire circumstances of most people around us. When the elites, the academicians, the top minds of a discipline sit down and talk about the importance of reading, I hope they remember the conditions of the ordinary working class. When “bibliophiles” fill up their home library with books, and make a video on it just to flaunt and say “I don’t know where to put all these books!” I hope they remember what a privilege it is to hold a book, feel its spine, soak in the words and then put them on display because they share a world with millions of people who go to bed on an empty stomach.
Let me end my rant by saying that this should not be interpreted as a call against readers, or something written by a poor young woman who is simply jealous of the people around who read more than her. I appreciate reading. I love reading and every time I pick up a book, I remind myself how lucky I am to do so. Knowledge is a priceless, sacred artifact, and this article is a mere attempt to remind all readers, including myself, what a privilege it is to be able to read.
Happy reading!