Thread by @KrisAtLarge

I got taught "Palmer method" #cursive handwriting in school. it was a traumatic process as you might imagine; we've suffered from poor motor coördination all our remembered life, and also there's signs that we probably would have been left-handed if we weren't traumatized.

(1/x)

that style of cursive writing, however, is best adapted for formal communication. cursive is slow to write and takes up a lot of space on the page.

but #education, which is now utterly subordinate to the antic needs of #capitalism, likes *speed* and short time intervals.

(2/x)

hence schools have phased out cursive handwriting, so that it's easier for students to do tests and papers in class. of course, right-wing (and racıst) dullards of the @DouthatNYT / @thomaschattwill / @charlesmurray sort blame the disappearance of cursive on, you know...

(3/x)

...leftists, or "woke agenda", or whatnot. as you may have noticed, folks like @DouthatNYT and @charlesmurray aren't very bright. they've learned how to imitate the mannerisms of intellectuals, but they are in fact quite *thick* about most things.

back to #cursive though.

(4/x)

cursive handwriting disappeared because of our society's addiction to speed. not the sort of speed that @mtaibbi or @elonmusk stuff up their nostrils, but *celerity*, *rapidity*. #capitalism is obsessed with "efficiency", and thinks that mere velocity is the same thing.

(5/x)

even #IQ, the favorite integer of the @charlesmurray / @EPoe187 / @SwipeWright "race scientist" set (@ID_AA_Carmack you know these guys right? @pmarca, you've heard of 'em? these "scientific racısts"?) is a mere measure of _speed_. it's a ratio of two ages.

(6/x)

that, at least, was the original conception. #IQ was defined as a ratio of "mental age" to "chronological age"—which basically means that IQ assumes that older is always smarter, which is ridiculous even if you take death or senility (hi @RonaldReagan) out of the equation.

(7/x)

it's also ridiculous to think that "intelligence" ought to be gauged by speed in the first place: in problem solving, what matters most is *getting the correct answer*, not how quickly you arrived at it. @benshapiro talks quickly and never says one correct word, even 'it'.

(8/x)

I hated cursive handwriting for a while. in my middle school years, cursed (hah) with a perpetual inability to finish essay questions on time, I forced myself to change my handwriting style to a compact semi-print, and I started getting better grades on essay questions.

(9/x)

that wasn't the fault of the #cursive itself. I was forced to abandon it not because of "woke" anything, but because I was being *timed* all the time.

that's how #capitalism has chained us all. they've seized and rationed #time. we're all hopping around by their clocks.

(10/x)

("Metropolis" was always true, you know. Fritz Lang's "Metropolis".)

I miss cursive handwriting now mainly for one reason...

...barring dots and crosses, you can write a sentence with a single stroke of the pen. that's why they call it "cursive" in fact.

(11/x)

a cursive sentence is "unicursal"—it can be written with a single pen stroke, like the "unicursal hexagram" that Aleister Crowley probably stole from someone else. (hey look I have to be honest here!)

one can even imagine never lifting the pen between sentences.

(12/x)

here's an example from a Google image search of someone writing (as much as they can) with a single pen stroke. all the words run together but you can still make them out, and if you wanted, you could just space the words out more, with horizontal lines connecting them.

(13/x)

you could write a whole book in one pen stroke (dotting the 'i's and 'j's and crossing the 't's later; it's pretty easy to tell what those are, in properly written cursive.)

all the wisdom of the world, in one stroke of the pen.

handwriting is underrated.

~Chara of Pnictogen

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