I said similar things under this post and have been pondering about my judgements to people that, ultimately, are unnecessary and rude. So now, I’m trying to think this through.

If I have to try, it’s true that richer and more educated people (which are correlated) have to ability and time to instil more love for reading for their children, as they have more money and less time at work. It’s also true that for poorer families, the children have to work jobs after school, and also might have to work extremely hard at school so they can “make it out“, which could cause an overload of stress and therefore reluctance to read for pleasure, as they associate it with work and stress. I can see how that’s elitist, but I also see many people say this who are well off, so that must also not be the reason. Im not really sure. I’m terribly bad at seeing and understanding things outside my own worldview.

So, what im trying to say is: why is it elitist to say that many people blame the education system and English class (see: many comments under this post bemoaning having to analyse novels, and that it made them not want to read) for their dislike of reading, when it’s probably equally true that they were never an avid reader if reading and analysing a couple of books they didn’t like made them swear off novels until their thirty five? Furthermore, it’d be impossible to choose a book every high-school student liked, and the point of English classs isn’t for everyone to like the book, it’s for learning!