Well stated and I agree it is like an unstated holistic undstanding of things of the past to KNOW where one is now and in the future.....to speak in euphemisms and concepts in a few simple words without requiring further elucidation.....I am a High school drop out at the 10th grade, went back again and got kicked out....THANK GOD!.....it unbound my curiosity by having to deal with life, it also freed me having a bunch of BS stuffed into my head.....I know a lot about a LOT, an expert in several other areas.Never witnessed anything fix itself.....only Humans can if they want to.......
"you are illiterate because I'm going to expand the meaning of the word until it includes 99.9% of the population. I'm going to continue to assert that this is a legitimate definition of literacy by stating, without any evidence whatsoever, that this is how it was understood historically. I am not going to be specific about which time period. I will claim that people can no longer understand the words they're reading without saying why I think this, because I know that the literacy crisis meme has done the legwork for me, and the reader will approach my essay believing half-remembered tweets about college students struggling to read Bleak House. I will not at any point explain why reading Thucydides in Greek etc. is beneficial on a societal level. I will not talk about how, 'historically', only a small percentage of the population was able to read at all. Finally, I will continue to hand-wring about the current state of affairs, but without explaining why it's better to have a hyperliterate minority instead of a basically literate majority.'
Think you hit the nail on the head with much of this.
The root of the problem is clearly not a lack of resources - in fact, we have more educational tools at our fingertips than ever before in history - but rather an underlying cultural shift in motivation.
In the present age, education is commonly thought of as a mere gating criteria, where you need just enough of it to be (or even just to appear) economically functional.
I'd like to think of it more as a means of cultivating the mind and soul for a purpose much greater than ourselves (but sometimes for no premeditated purpose at all).
Yes. It is most easily seen in the depth of conversation that can be held. When schools became controlled by business the need to understand went out the window.
I'd wager to say this is not really a problem in the long run. You speak of Harvard in the 1800's requiring Latin, I'd point to the opium and gambling dens that were taking shape along with other vices. The nature of man in this fallen world is to arrive at what they're meant to be. This includes cultures and civilizations. There are those who are born into "high culture" that fall to vice and those born to the dregs that come out as wise men. You cannot lay blame on any failure of a culture to any singular when it's just the fallen state of man that drives this.
Consider all the things a single man must know in today's day and age compared to before: Technology, social etiquette, the tasks of the day, how to logistically make it to and from destinations in good time, politics, leisure, all surrounded by wants and desires that have grown as knowledge has increased. The literacy of man has not diminished, it has been spread among a million different things that we now must navigate in the daily life of our age.
But, there is an even more insidious thought in that the 20th Century study of the mind yielded understanding of how to influence and shape human behavior while industrial advances made production of goods prevalent to the point where it's easier to buy a new one than repair an old one. The virtues of today are not the virtues of yesterday and I guarantee that the virtues of tomorrow will not be the virtues of today. People are bombarded with information that is deliberately tuned to be more receptive to their minds.
There is a common culture currently being formed in the digital space and even that changes much faster to the internet culture that first emerged in the early 2000's. It's rudimentary with sayings like "X is cooked" being a euphemism for either exhaustion, defeat, or any completeness in a negative sense. There's also the one doing the cooking as accomplishing a great thing. They've replaced archetypes of man with psychological diagnoses like narcissists, attachment styles, or Meyer-Briggs classifications.
And there are yet still geographical and dialect differences in these sayings and other cultural idioms. There is a culture there, but it's unlike anything we've seen before and can be more directly influenced paradoxically both by individuals and groups with the funding to broaden exposure to an idea and making it "viral".
All in all, I agree with your overall conclusion and do lament some of the changes to this world. There is, however, a problem that must be solved. I'm disconnected to most of my peers by nature of refusing more and more to engage with this digital culture. It's being part of a vastly shrinking minority, and while I can say I've been able to drag some people out of it their technological dopamine hooks run deep. I do not foresee this type of culture here becoming greater than that emerging culture without reaching them.
Not only do moderns not know the answers to the test, not only have they never heard of not just the authors of classical works but even what they wrote, they could not even identify the _value of knowing_. They would deny it outright.
Ignorance and crudity are “celebrated”, paraded publicly as badges of honor. Moral decay is a virtue. Ugliness is beauty.
Fixing this mess is a long-term project. An honest examination of the cause of social retrogression must be had first. But not even that reality is widely recognized.
It will be from the ashes that the phoenix arises.
Thank you for this essay, I agree 100% with your analysis as it applies not only to the US. I am Italian, migrated with my parents to Germany at the age of 6. My father was housekeeper in an US military base. My education is a mess. I got my high school diploma while I was already married at 23. I speak three languages but would fail any exam on all of them. In German and Italian school 55 years ago we had Latin, in Italian high school I had philosophy. I have never been a proficient student, but I read a lot, children books, yes, those you mentioned and many more from Italian and German tradition. At 69 I wish I would know more, I just began to read some Greek philosophy history. I live in China now and in a rural area at that. They keep their traditions, they know their philosopher, they know their history, they even have books with the history of their clans dating back nearly 1000 years that are passed down generation after generation. They know their roots, you can engage conversations that go beyond small talk. And they have been able to do that even if only 30 years ago, half of the people could not write or read, and were living in poverty. Before moving to Mainland China I have been living in Hong Kong 15 years. I thought that Hong Kong would be a natural melting pot where different cultures would meet, engage and evolve. I found that most of the local population has no idea of western and Chinese culture, basically they have no education, they are blind and deaf. They have been subjected to colonial brainwash. My wife 20 years ago was not reading, I began to read books to her, now I cannot keep up, she is devouring books, western and Chinese alike. To know your own roots, own culture is not only important to understand yourself and your origin, it is also fundamental to understand others, alien cultures, it opens up your mind. By being exposed to so many different social environments, I have developed critical thinking, actually I have learned to think, not just to follow, I have learned to ask questions and to find answers. I haven learned to respect and to argue, sometimes I have to revise some of my thoughts, other times I can confirm them, I keep on learning and discover. So thank you again for your thoughts, I have failed half of that early century rural examination. I would like just to add that knowledge is universal. Do not use your knowledge and roots to close yourself in your own yard, while you should know every inch of it remember there is a world outside, culture is not static it evolves. The old Greeks were masters in that, debate is necessary. So when you look outside do it with an open mind and an open heart, despite difficulties, beliefs and misunderstanding, you will be surprised by the amount of convergences that other cultures can offer.
No other workforce is more entitled than public school teachers. Teachers at the high school I graduated from had the gall to demand more pay a few months ago while ranking #229 in the state, with a reading proficiency rating of 38%. Public school teachers get paid far too much and it’s high time we trim the fat. That includes kicking out students who don’t want to learn. No Child Left Behind was a nice idea, but it has been detrimental to our education system.
This reminds me of a recent discussion with a young PhD psychologist where I mentioned one of her patients was getting the "scarlet letter" from the school administration and getting a blank look. Guess kids don't read Hawthorne anymore.
Reading itself is going away. Whenever I highlight anything on my phone, it says “read aloud?” Gboard keyboard gets worse and worse, they obviously want us to use voice input because third worlders can’t understand touch input.
The next version of Windows will remove keyboard and mouse as input devices just like light pen. What’s a light pen? Exactly.
Well stated and I agree it is like an unstated holistic undstanding of things of the past to KNOW where one is now and in the future.....to speak in euphemisms and concepts in a few simple words without requiring further elucidation.....I am a High school drop out at the 10th grade, went back again and got kicked out....THANK GOD!.....it unbound my curiosity by having to deal with life, it also freed me having a bunch of BS stuffed into my head.....I know a lot about a LOT, an expert in several other areas.Never witnessed anything fix itself.....only Humans can if they want to.......
Good for you!
Thank you for a great article. I have said for years that putting your children in public school is child abuse. What is America going to do about it?
Thank you! We’re going to fix this.
Read! Read everything! When you can no longer see, get talking books from your library and listen!
Amen!
"you are illiterate because I'm going to expand the meaning of the word until it includes 99.9% of the population. I'm going to continue to assert that this is a legitimate definition of literacy by stating, without any evidence whatsoever, that this is how it was understood historically. I am not going to be specific about which time period. I will claim that people can no longer understand the words they're reading without saying why I think this, because I know that the literacy crisis meme has done the legwork for me, and the reader will approach my essay believing half-remembered tweets about college students struggling to read Bleak House. I will not at any point explain why reading Thucydides in Greek etc. is beneficial on a societal level. I will not talk about how, 'historically', only a small percentage of the population was able to read at all. Finally, I will continue to hand-wring about the current state of affairs, but without explaining why it's better to have a hyperliterate minority instead of a basically literate majority.'
Thank you for sharing.
Think you hit the nail on the head with much of this.
The root of the problem is clearly not a lack of resources - in fact, we have more educational tools at our fingertips than ever before in history - but rather an underlying cultural shift in motivation.
In the present age, education is commonly thought of as a mere gating criteria, where you need just enough of it to be (or even just to appear) economically functional.
I'd like to think of it more as a means of cultivating the mind and soul for a purpose much greater than ourselves (but sometimes for no premeditated purpose at all).
Everyone was white and hadn’t yet been subverted by world jewry
Yes. It is most easily seen in the depth of conversation that can be held. When schools became controlled by business the need to understand went out the window.
I'd wager to say this is not really a problem in the long run. You speak of Harvard in the 1800's requiring Latin, I'd point to the opium and gambling dens that were taking shape along with other vices. The nature of man in this fallen world is to arrive at what they're meant to be. This includes cultures and civilizations. There are those who are born into "high culture" that fall to vice and those born to the dregs that come out as wise men. You cannot lay blame on any failure of a culture to any singular when it's just the fallen state of man that drives this.
Consider all the things a single man must know in today's day and age compared to before: Technology, social etiquette, the tasks of the day, how to logistically make it to and from destinations in good time, politics, leisure, all surrounded by wants and desires that have grown as knowledge has increased. The literacy of man has not diminished, it has been spread among a million different things that we now must navigate in the daily life of our age.
But, there is an even more insidious thought in that the 20th Century study of the mind yielded understanding of how to influence and shape human behavior while industrial advances made production of goods prevalent to the point where it's easier to buy a new one than repair an old one. The virtues of today are not the virtues of yesterday and I guarantee that the virtues of tomorrow will not be the virtues of today. People are bombarded with information that is deliberately tuned to be more receptive to their minds.
There is a common culture currently being formed in the digital space and even that changes much faster to the internet culture that first emerged in the early 2000's. It's rudimentary with sayings like "X is cooked" being a euphemism for either exhaustion, defeat, or any completeness in a negative sense. There's also the one doing the cooking as accomplishing a great thing. They've replaced archetypes of man with psychological diagnoses like narcissists, attachment styles, or Meyer-Briggs classifications.
And there are yet still geographical and dialect differences in these sayings and other cultural idioms. There is a culture there, but it's unlike anything we've seen before and can be more directly influenced paradoxically both by individuals and groups with the funding to broaden exposure to an idea and making it "viral".
All in all, I agree with your overall conclusion and do lament some of the changes to this world. There is, however, a problem that must be solved. I'm disconnected to most of my peers by nature of refusing more and more to engage with this digital culture. It's being part of a vastly shrinking minority, and while I can say I've been able to drag some people out of it their technological dopamine hooks run deep. I do not foresee this type of culture here becoming greater than that emerging culture without reaching them.
Not only do moderns not know the answers to the test, not only have they never heard of not just the authors of classical works but even what they wrote, they could not even identify the _value of knowing_. They would deny it outright.
Ignorance and crudity are “celebrated”, paraded publicly as badges of honor. Moral decay is a virtue. Ugliness is beauty.
Fixing this mess is a long-term project. An honest examination of the cause of social retrogression must be had first. But not even that reality is widely recognized.
It will be from the ashes that the phoenix arises.
Thank you for this essay, I agree 100% with your analysis as it applies not only to the US. I am Italian, migrated with my parents to Germany at the age of 6. My father was housekeeper in an US military base. My education is a mess. I got my high school diploma while I was already married at 23. I speak three languages but would fail any exam on all of them. In German and Italian school 55 years ago we had Latin, in Italian high school I had philosophy. I have never been a proficient student, but I read a lot, children books, yes, those you mentioned and many more from Italian and German tradition. At 69 I wish I would know more, I just began to read some Greek philosophy history. I live in China now and in a rural area at that. They keep their traditions, they know their philosopher, they know their history, they even have books with the history of their clans dating back nearly 1000 years that are passed down generation after generation. They know their roots, you can engage conversations that go beyond small talk. And they have been able to do that even if only 30 years ago, half of the people could not write or read, and were living in poverty. Before moving to Mainland China I have been living in Hong Kong 15 years. I thought that Hong Kong would be a natural melting pot where different cultures would meet, engage and evolve. I found that most of the local population has no idea of western and Chinese culture, basically they have no education, they are blind and deaf. They have been subjected to colonial brainwash. My wife 20 years ago was not reading, I began to read books to her, now I cannot keep up, she is devouring books, western and Chinese alike. To know your own roots, own culture is not only important to understand yourself and your origin, it is also fundamental to understand others, alien cultures, it opens up your mind. By being exposed to so many different social environments, I have developed critical thinking, actually I have learned to think, not just to follow, I have learned to ask questions and to find answers. I haven learned to respect and to argue, sometimes I have to revise some of my thoughts, other times I can confirm them, I keep on learning and discover. So thank you again for your thoughts, I have failed half of that early century rural examination. I would like just to add that knowledge is universal. Do not use your knowledge and roots to close yourself in your own yard, while you should know every inch of it remember there is a world outside, culture is not static it evolves. The old Greeks were masters in that, debate is necessary. So when you look outside do it with an open mind and an open heart, despite difficulties, beliefs and misunderstanding, you will be surprised by the amount of convergences that other cultures can offer.
No other workforce is more entitled than public school teachers. Teachers at the high school I graduated from had the gall to demand more pay a few months ago while ranking #229 in the state, with a reading proficiency rating of 38%. Public school teachers get paid far too much and it’s high time we trim the fat. That includes kicking out students who don’t want to learn. No Child Left Behind was a nice idea, but it has been detrimental to our education system.
Nice marketing, Silas Lapham.
This reminds me of a recent discussion with a young PhD psychologist where I mentioned one of her patients was getting the "scarlet letter" from the school administration and getting a blank look. Guess kids don't read Hawthorne anymore.
We truly are diminished.
Reading itself is going away. Whenever I highlight anything on my phone, it says “read aloud?” Gboard keyboard gets worse and worse, they obviously want us to use voice input because third worlders can’t understand touch input.
The next version of Windows will remove keyboard and mouse as input devices just like light pen. What’s a light pen? Exactly.
Niggerfication
Women took over the educational institutions and there are some other side effects but you can pretty much boil everything down to this.