3 Key Takeaways: Traffic by John Ruskin

This is part of my ongoing video series of Three Key Takeaways from books I’ve read – the lessons we should take as authors from what worked and what didn’t work. You can view the original video here with the transcript below: https://www.tiktok.com/@rhiannondaverc/video/7354717534404267297

I’m a professional ghostwriter and these are my key takeaways from Traffic by John Ruskin. This is such a small book, you honestly would not think I’d be able to get three key takeaways from this much text, but I’ve done it. This is from the Penguin Little Black Classics series and I can honestly see why.

So these are a couple of essays about art, about religion, about morals and ethics, religion, capitalism, art and architecture in this tiny little package. That is correct, he covers all of those topics. Now the actual speech, Traffic, that the whole book is named after was delivered in April 1864.

That’s a long time ago and you would think that the things that this Victorian art critic was talking about would not be relevant today. However, my first key takeaway is this, a genuine example endures. Now in this book he talks about the difference in wages between a labourer and a scientist or a doctor and the way that he talks about it, I don’t want to give too many spoilers because I think everyone should read this for themselves, but the way that he talks about it is not only so correct and makes so much sense, but it’s so applicable to today that it’s actually laughable.

I even have been working with a client on a book which looks at some of the same principles because we still haven’t solved this problem today. It has been more than 150 years since he gave that speech and it’s still relevant today. A good example endures, a good example helps people to understand what you are talking about two centuries later.

My second key takeaway from this book is to use a tiny example to show the ludicrousity of a big thing. So to paraphrase slightly, in his speech he talks about this metaphorical character who’s living in a grand mansion and yet when he goes inside the mansion he finds that it’s very sparsely decorated. He has no decorations, no furniture, and in this story that he’s telling he asks the rich man, why don’t you put up something to make this place a little more comfortable, maybe even some damask curtains? And the guy says, damask curtains? I can’t afford that, that’s a luxury.

I have to spend all my money on steel traps. What? But the world thinks you’re rich, how can you be spending all your money on steel traps? And he says, well I have to put steel traps against the fence that I share with my neighbor. Why? For that fellow on the other side of the wall, you know.

We’re very good friends, capital friends, but we are obliged to keep our traps set on both sides of the wall. We could not possibly keep on friendly terms without them and our spring guns. The worst of it is we are both clever fellows enough and there’s never a day passes that we don’t find out about a new trap or a new gun barrel or something.

We spend about 15 millions a year each in our traps, take it all together, and I don’t see how we’re to do with less. And he says, well that’s stupid isn’t it? We can see how stupid that is, but when it’s two nations doing that, we don’t point out how stupid it is. So the point he’s making is such a small thing about two neighbors sharing a plot of land, but when you then apply that to the much grander scale of a country, he makes such a good point and it makes you go, yeah this is ridiculous, why are we spending all of this money on steel traps when we don’t even have curtains?

My third key takeaway from this book is that simple is best.

His rhetoric works best and is most convincing when it is simple and understandable. He is really good at using those kind of examples throughout the book and explaining things in small and simple ways. Sometimes he gets lost a little bit in the more flowery language of the time, and when that happens it’s less easy to draw out his meaning fully.

And I think that’s a lesson we can take today as well. Simple is best. The more people that can understand what you are saying, the better.

And I think new writers often have this tendency, and I used to see this all the time when I was running writing internships and I was coaching young writers who were either students or just new graduates, they always have this tendency to write as if they’ve swallowed a dictionary. And they would use the longest words possible and the longest sentences possible and show off everything that they know how to do. What’s actually important is not how much you show off about what you are able to do with words.

What’s important is how many people can understand the message you’re trying to deliver. If hardly anyone can understand your message, then it’s simply not going to be successful. Those are my three key takeaways from Traffic by John Ruskin.

Let me know if there are any other classic pieces of literature that you think I should look into, whether fiction or non-fiction, to give you some key takeaways that are still applicable in modern times.