Norma Thompson, a senior humanities lecturer at Yale University, bemoaned the decline of “adult books” on Monday in the University’s French House. Thompson was the first of three lecturers in the Inaugural Millennial Classics series, sponsored by the Eric Voegelin Institute and the University’s Roger Hadfield Ogden Honors College.
“It’s good to reflect on our mortality, and books take us there,” Thompson said.
Thompson received her Ph.D. in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago and has published several books. One of which, titled “Ship of State,” explores political theories of philosophers ranging from Homer to Machiavelli.
Her lecture analyzed the works of other philosophers and posed the question: “Can you learn more from a person or from a book?” Thompson said she began asking that question about a decade ago.
“The seniors [at Yale] only ever gave one category of answer — you can learn more from a person,” Thompson said. “The reputation of the book has suffered. It seems anonymous, distant, cold — for which reasons college bookstores now sell sweatshirts and shot glasses.”
Thompson said students can probably learn more from a book than a person, saying she learned more from Plato’s “Republic” than any teacher.
“But I needed those teachers of Plato to learn from that book,” Thompson said. “And I relied on them for just about everything I learned.”
Thompson credits the declining interest in books to the rising popularity of various screens. The advancing technology of smartphones provides more instant entertainment, she said.
“I’m just a person speaking in a little bullet of time, and underlying how a work like [“Republic”] invites you to come back and think again,” she said.