Reading Books Isn't a Moral Virtue

In Defense of Non-Readers

I'm about to commit academic heresy.

As I write this, I'm sitting in my study surrounded by books. While I don’t feel the need to collect them, I love books. One of my peak memories remains lounging at a café in Split, Croatia, lost in a non-fiction paperback while hearing the murmur of people walking by in the quaint old town. As a child and adolescent, I would escape the world with books, typically fantasy or science fiction. Later in university, I got a taste for more “respectable” literature, though of late I have returned to my love of epic fantasy, unashamed. Reading, in other words, is my idea of paradise.

And yet.

I can't help but wonder: why do we treat reading for pleasure as inherently virtuous? Why do we—not even subtly—look down on those who prefer Netflix to novels?

I feel this tension acutely as a parent. Despite all those nights reading to my (then) young children, despite trying every trick imaginable (including, yes, literally paying them to read like some economist's ex…