On the Mass Amputation of the ‘Organ of Meaning’ and the Triumph of Huxley
Introduction: AI as an Excuse for Human Stupidity
Human beings have a peculiar trait: they hate admitting their own weaknesses and mistakes. They always seek some external scapegoat to absolve themselves of responsibility. Depending on the scale of the failure, we blame the alignment of the planets, a black cat crossing the street, a neighbor’s cold glance, or childhood traumas.
These excuses suffice for minor mishaps. But global issues require something more formidable: epidemics, earthquakes, wars. Recently, even aliens have begun appearing in the news—have you noticed?
Today, humanity has conjured a new alibi. We are increasingly told that the new inhabitant of our planet—Artificial Intelligence—is the root of our troubles. People eagerly offload their own stupidity onto AI, much like they once did with a retrograde Mercury.
AI is accused of making children "dumber." In reality, adults haven’t become any wiser, but the propaganda remains silent on that point—it would ruin the narrative. These claims crumble under the slightest scrutiny. Ask yourself: when did you first meet people proudly declaring that reading is "boring"? Certainly not three years ago. This began long before the LLM revolution. Fifteen years ago, while interviewing candidates for my company, I always asked what they were reading. Only one in ten named real books. Others recalled odd titles like "How to Get Rich in 30 Days" — opuses no more literary than a refrigerator’s manual. Others, without a moment's hesitation, said: "Why bother? There's nothing interesting in books."
The Diagnosis: Students Can No Longer Read
The chickens have come home to roost. "Gen Z is arriving at college unable to even read a sentence," reported Fortune this January. Professor Jessica Hooten Wilson of Pepperdine University notes that universities are being forced to adapt their standards. A YouGov* poll (December 2025) found that Americans aged 18–29 read an average of 5.8 books in 2025 — the lowest among age groups — with around 40% reading none."
And yet, the "experts" offer us fairy tales. They blame digital distractions and "short-form content" for destroying "deep analysis skills." Science, from which we expect clarity, instead provides a list of comical pseudo-explanations: a lack of vocabulary, "anxiety," and low "stamina" which supposedly makes reading a form of "torture."
The Critique of Pedagogy: The Myth of ‘Data Processing’
Instead of rigorous work, we are offered "convenient" hypotheses. None of these scholars can explain what "deep analysis" actually means. Does one need a specialized analytical toolkit to feel the surge of emotion—from hatred to tears—evoked by a great poem or a novel? Analyze deeply, and weep. Fail to analyze — sit there like a vacant-eyed stump.
And what "stamina" is required? These same students can stare at screens and scroll through Reels for eighteen hours straight, yet ten minutes of a masterful novel leaves them in a state of near-faint.
Experts claim smartphones created "clip thinking," reducing the ability to work with "voluminous texts." I ask these pedagogues: are two lines "voluminous"? Here's a mere dozen words from one of the greatest 20th-century poets:
*"And suddenly you are left without skin,*
Because they killed him—not you!"
What "analysis" is required here? Do you need an anatomical reference book to feel the sting? These specialists are like the blind describing sight, all while collecting grants and titles.
Stop! It Won’t Help.
They try to convince us that reading is "information consumption." But pick up Ivanhoe. What "information" made generations of young people weep? You cannot say, because great books are absorbed, not processed.
One very important point: discussions focus mainly on scientific or academic texts; fiction is sidelined, as if it no longer counts as literature. Yet that's exactly where the journey into the world of books always began.
A seven-year-old child didn't read scientific journals or reports; he read adventure novels, books about new worlds, love, courage. On those works he grew the special organs of feeling and perception needed for further development.
Modern education attempts to turn reading into "data processing." But data does not evoke tears. Tears are born from a resonance of meanings. ‘Analysis’ is the work of a pathologist over the corpse of a text. Reading is living within the vast universe hidden in a book.
Generation Z cannot read not because they lack "analytical tools," but because the sensory organ responsible for perceiving that universe has completely atrophied.
The Core: To Read = To Think
As the brilliant philologist Evgeny Zharinov says, if a person doesn't read, he can't think. There is an equal sign between "thinking" and "reading," not an arrow indicating sequence. These abilities develop simultaneously. Training is useless; a fool cannot become wise even by reciting aloud texts from thousands of the best books. For him, all those letters on pages are just noise; his brain cannot generate worlds.
In Henri Troyat’s fine novel Les Eygletière (The Eygletière Family) Jean-Marc explains the art of listening to music. This episode is one of the most precise in world literature descriptions of intellectual and emotional experience. Music isn't just harmonious sounds to "enjoy" in an armchair; it's a breakthrough into another dimension. It can be compared to an open window revealing a landscape utterly unlike our everyday bustle.
To see that world requires effort. The window is open, yet a blind man sees only emptiness. It is as if a portal to a parallel space was cut into your wall. Merely looking is useless; you must have the courage to step over the threshold and let that world swallow you.
I'm talking about phenomena of the same order. Reading for the brain is what rich music is for the ear. It is not "information"; it is an invasion of another cosmos. If students cannot read a sentence, they certainly cannot "hear" the music. Both are just noise. When the "organ of meaning" is atrophied, one hears the sound but misses the music. One sees the letters but never sees Ivanhoe.
The Biological Divide
The number of those capable of seeing through this "window" is shrinking. The majority remain in a room with windowless walls, convinced the world is limited to their smartphone.
I've long had the feeling that someone finds it important to convince us AI has made people stupider. This is a manipulation. AI is not a substitute for intellect; it is a hallucinogen for fools' self-esteem. We are witnessing a new manifestation of the Dunning-Kruger effect. A fool appropriates the output of an algorithm, sincerely believing that "delivering a result" and "producing a thought" are the same.
This is a biological trap: in reality, the cognitive distance between the thinker and the fool is widening (one creates meanings, the other creates prompts), but in the fool’s mind, it has shrunk to zero. AI has gifted him the illusion of intellectual equality.
Education is dead because it tries to treat symptoms (banning smartphones) without realizing that the patient— the reading human (Homo lector) —is physically vanishing.
The Verdict: Physical Blindness
We are facing mass cognitive blindness. This is the dying off of an entire part of the nervous system. When educators try to "entice" students with pictures, they are trying to show a landscape to someone with an atrophied optic nerve. He can stare out Jean-Marc’s window for eternity and see only emptiness. The organ capable of turning a letter into an image has been amputated.
This is not a crisis of education; it is a biological shift. The biological nature of the problem is a crucial detail. I think a continuation of this article is needed to discuss this hypothesis, as well as the causes and purpose of the process.
Toward Dystopia: Is This the Goal?
The famous argument between Orwell and Huxley has ended. Neil Postman**, in Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, famously compared their prophecies. Orwell feared a tyranny that would ban books. Huxley feared there would be no reason to ban books, for no one would want to read them; humanity would drown in an ocean of triviality.
Today, we see Huxley’s triumph. No one forbids students from reading. We no longer fear Fahrenheit 451; firemen don't need to burn books—they will simply rot on the shelves because there is no one left to translate letters into images. We have achieved Orwellian unfreedom through Huxleyan dopamine. People aren't forbidden from reading Shakespeare or Scott. It has simply been made physiologically unbearable for them.The nightmare of 1984 has been realized by Huxley's methods.
Postscript
Human tales are as old as humanity itself. For thousands of years, we lived through the images hidden in ballads and books. We were creators of universes. We physically felt the lines. "We swallowed books, drunk on the lines," as the poet wrote.
That's how it was, and now it's almost gone. Not because of artificial intelligence, not because of the internet — the process began much earlier. Neil Postman noticed it not today. In 1985, when his famous book came out, the changes were already visible to the naked eye.
But why wasn't this phenomenon stopped in the bud? Why was it allowed to take root?
We will discuss that—and the intended goals of this process—in the second part of this article.
*https://yougov.com/en-us/articles/53804-most-americans-didnt-read-many-books-in-2025
** Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business