A Point of View: In defence of obscure words

We chase "fast culture" at our peril - unusual words and difficult art are good for us, says Will Self.

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But the most disturbing result of this retreat from the difficult is to be found in arts and humanities education, where the traditional set texts are now chopped up into boneless nuggets of McKnowledge, and students are encouraged to do their research - such as it is - on the web.

In place of the difficulty involved in seeking out the literary canon, younger people are coming to rely on search engines to do their thinking for them. The end result of this will be a standardisation of understanding itself, as people become unable to think outside of the box-shaped screen.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17777556