New Classics, and why aren't there any?

Charles Dickens. William Shakespeare. Walt Whitman. (These are all men...Oh!) Emily Dickinson, Jane Austen, Kate Chopin. Mark Twain.

Let's play a game. What do all these have in common?

A. They are all men.
B. They are all fake names.
C. They all wrote literary classics still read today, at least in schools.
D. They all wrote in a lot of years ago.
E. They were all illiterate.

A. is sorta true, and goes with letter B. A lot of women used male pen names blahblahblahblahblah oppression blah blah inequality blah. Yea, so. Letter C! That's what I wanted to get to.

All the great writers, poets, novelists, all of them that are considered "classics" were written before computers, which was like a million years ago. For realz yo. I just finished reading A Tale of Two Cities, by none other than the great Dickens. As I was reading it, I marveled at the intelligent language and well put together story, and starting wondering why on earth I had read nothing that could compare to it in a couple of years - or by anyone who had ever used a computer.

I have two theories.

Theory Number Uno. Computers are trying to take over the world or are trying to make humans dumber than we already are.
Supported by my absolutely faulty logic, computers have been around for my entire lifetime. During my entire lifetime, people have been getting dumber. Exhibit 1: guy who decided that "cruise control" for an RV really meant "auto pilot" and that he didn't really need to be at the wheel of a 1 ton machine going 55 mph down a highway. Exhibit 2: The current economic crisis.

Also, Hollywood is always a good predictor of the future right? So, I'm going to pretend that all those "OMG COMPUTERS ARE TAKING OVER THE WORLD...hmmm, Brad Pitt is looking handsome today...OH NO I'M BEING EATEN BY AN APPLE" movies are true and that computers are just waiting until we as a human race are too dumb to do anything about robots taking over our lives. How they will do it? I can't tell you, it would require me to use a computer and then they might start to get ideas.

Theory Number Dos: The English language is being lost because we are lazy and have people like Kayne West and Miley Cyrus releasing books.
"Yo, I like did this good thing, something way more rad than I ever did 'fore. And then I got some mad z's, way more gooder than 'fore." Somehow doesn't compare to "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known." Man, I just feel so fulfilled reading that. The first one makes me want to go back to English class.

So, how do we reverse this trend? 1.) I think that if you can't speak a clear sentence on the spur of the moment, you should not be allowed to release a book. 2.) If you are a celebrity writing about yourself, you should not be allowed to release a book. And 3.) Everyone should pick up a classic and read it right now. Mostly because it's just a good time!

:)