Literacy and the Dumbing Down of America and the World

Two Op-Ed pieces in the Washington Post today caught my eye. Howard Gardner's, "The End of Literacy? Don't Stop Reading.", which speaks to the changing nature of literacy around the world, and Susan Jacoby's, "The Dumbing Of America", which, as the title indicates, talks to how American's are not only becoming more ignorant, but are actually proud of this ignorance. They offer and interesting juxtaposition in that they both use the same ideas to reach different conclusions. Both Jacoby and Gardner agree on the obvious point that technological advances have changed the nature of learning and the acquisition of information. Where they diverge is on the effects of these changes.

Jacoby contends that the advent of video technology has not only affected the America's reading habits (as proved by the oft decried decline in book, newspaper, and magazine sales) but has affected the ability of people to focus on anything for any sustained period of time. She also states that Americans are going through an appalling period where learning seems to have become unimportant or, even worse, "elitist". It's not important to know WHERE Iraq is as long as we know something bad is happening there. Understanding the historical, political and cultural ideas and events that are the cornerstone of American society are now considered irrelevent. According to Jacoby, American's are keeping themselves purposely ignorant.

Gardner, on the other hand, seems to believe that technology doesn't effect the nature of literacy and knowledge in a negative way, but has simply changed the way we approach the wriitten word. While print media may be on the decline, literacy itself is under no threat. The written word will continue in new forms and a literate population will remain. There is the fact that 70% or more of all information on the internet is in written form. The explosion of the blogosphere has created a whole new medium for people to express their ideas. People aren't reading books, but they are reading.

I tend to agree with Jacoby. I am often frightened by the fact that a fairly large percentage of Americans couldn't find Canada on a map if you paid them or that we could elect a president that doesn't seem to have a decent grasp of the English language. It bothers me that Americans in general have little regard for, or knowledge of, the world beyond the national borders. Politics has been reduced to a sound bite filled beauty pageant rather than a discussion of ideas. Historical knowledge is a thing of the past (pun very much intended). The era of great thinkers has degenerated into an age of self-help, new-age, pyramid schemers more interested in a quick buck than actually having anything important to say. Literacy may not die, but critical thinking, reason, and rational thought are in rapid decline.