Illiteracy and Social Control

I wanted to share a disturbing article I read a few days ago by Chris Hedges. I knew this, but the article puts it all together and provides a context for the 'dumbing down' of the US population:

www.truthdig.com...

We live in two Americas.

One America, now the minority, functions in a print-based, literate world. It can cope with complexity and has the intellectual tools to separate illusion from truth.

The other America, which constitutes the majority, exists in a non-reality-based belief system. This America, dependent on skillfully manipulated images for information, has severed itself from the literate, print-based culture. It cannot differentiate between lies and truth. It is informed by simplistic, childish narratives and clichés. It is thrown into confusion by ambiguity, nuance and self-reflection.

This divide, more than race, class or gender, more than rural or urban, believer or nonbeliever, red state or blue state, has split the country into radically distinct, unbridgeable and antagonistic entities.

Then this news out of Chicago:

www.alternet.org...

A public school prinicpal in his resignation letter calls out the major Rahm Emmanuel:

In closing, should you ever decide to prioritize student learning over the profits of your campaign donors, feel free to reach out to me and the principals I was elected to represent. We have an abundance of ideas for improving the system for the students we serve. In the meantime, we will continue in our efforts to vigorously advocate for the kind of effective evidence-based education policies and practices that your office does its best to ignore and suppress.

To which of the two America's do you belong.

Then there is the Documentary, putting the above into historical and class context, "Requiem for the American Dream" about and by Noam Chomsky. Which can be seen on Netflix. Dr. Chomsky lays out step by step the demise of democracy in clear and simple (!!!!) English for both 'Americas'.

Have fun ---- or not....

a reply to: FyreByrd

I'm not sure that referring to these people as illiterate is really fair. They can read print and comprehend it just fine. It is intellectual laziness and an insatiable thirst for drama...as well as having everything right this second. Reading takes too long for the average person.

Easier just to watch a quick video and adopt someone else's perspective instead. And of course, that makes them simple to herd and control...and their apathy makes them too soft to realize it. There will always be people like that. Technology just makes it easier for them to tune out.

a reply to: FyreByrd

I work with a segment of the public that one would expect to be quite literate: CPA's, and tax attorneys.

Unfortunately, the degree to which that expectation is disproved, on a daily basis, leaves me to fearfully wonder for the security of the public's financial health.

I've lost count of how many so-called "professionals" I've (attempted) to communicate with who can neither speak, nor write, in coherent English.

Many cannot even "sound out" relatively common words.

And I am talking about native speakers!

And it is getting worse.

a reply to: FyreByrd

Yes. But, then again, look at what happened to poor Socrates.

One might say that heteronymous agents have always made up the majority, with us autonomous moral agents being the minority. It's nothing new, I think.

Certainly, it makes the masses easy to control. But they do it to themselves. It's called not thinking or using one's brain.

On the flip side, I think too much, and that isn't all roses.

Ignorance certainly is bliss.

a reply to: FyreByrd

Hey FyreBird: I love your op, as I truly believe it illustrates what is purposefully being manipulated within the population, as a way of testing our metal, if you will, and deciding what we are worth being used for= all bad, any way you look at it.

My perspective is informed by things such as this:

As part of humanity long before recorded history, storytelling’s connection with our early ancestors might help explain why resonates with us today. Studies have shown that human narratives impart a strong connection to its listeners. Through some evolved neurobiological mechanism, stories are able to bypass mental reasoning centers and tap directly into our emotions. Having access to that part of the brain allows the storyteller to cut through the noise of our hyperstimulating world, and leave the listener with a strong impression about whatever they have heard.

But, while it might be easy to brush off telling stories as a fluffy skill that has no measurable value, this is not a position the United States Department of Defense holds. Its research wing, DARPA, is conducting studies to find the neuroscientific implications of human narratives. Clearly that agency would not bother with such a topic unless it held tangible benefits, amicable or not.

LINK

I could go into this a lot more, about narrative research and what's posed as being "good and valuable" about it, healing people usually, but it's always a double edged sword, isn't it? Once you know how to cure, you also know how to introduce manipulation, control, and illness for an essential purpose. So, read that link and research narrative encoding understanding all those attendant issues, as well, pls.

This, I think, is very important in terms of what you are discussing in your OP, because it's how and why what you describe is being accomplished.....

tetra

a reply to: tetra50


If I stretch that, I can understand why all media fails in its efforts for the most part and leaves us wanting. Looking the other direction, I can understand why decent literature has meaning to most of us and comes closest to meeting our needs.

It is partially the Google crowd too, and shamefully, many should be literate. They think if they can type in a term and read the first headline that comes up, they are well-informed.

Then there is the shift away from phonics-based reading instruction, teaching reasoning skills as a formal part of curriculum, and other things like it.

They say that Common Core brings those things back, but I haven't seen any evidence of it.

I do see it teaching kids to hate education in all its many forms.

So what is the difference in the world described and the world that has existed throughout history?

originally posted by: Bhadhidar
a reply to: FyreByrd

I work with a segment of the public that one would expect to be quite literate: CPA's, and tax attorneys.

Unfortunately, the degree to which that expectation is disproved, on a daily basis, leaves me to fearfully wonder for the security of the public's financial health.

I've lost count of how many so-called "professionals" I've (attempted) to communicate with who can neither speak, nor write, in coherent English.

Many cannot even "sound out" relatively common words.

And I am talking about native speakers!

And it is getting worse.

I don't know that it's getting worse, it's just changing. The written word is evolving fast, from texting to emoji's to spell check it's becoming less important than ever to know how to actually spell something. What matters is that you can communicate the idea.

I'll grant that a lot of people are bad at writing, but I think they were always bad. They were probably better spellers in the past, but not necessarily better communicators.

originally posted by: Bhadhidar
a reply to: FyreByrd

I work with a segment of the public that one would expect to be quite literate: CPA's, and tax attorneys.

Unfortunately, the degree to which that expectation is disproved, on a daily basis, leaves me to fearfully wonder for the security of the public's financial health.

I've lost count of how many so-called "professionals" I've (attempted) to communicate with who can neither speak, nor write, in coherent English.

Many cannot even "sound out" relatively common words.

And I am talking about native speakers!

And it is getting worse.

LOL - I would with many 'professionals' as well and have found the same thing. They are quite proficient in their own tiny domain of knowledge and experience (and feel quite special about it too) but are unable to view anything from any different point of view or even acknowledge that other views other equally valid views exist. They are unable to understand, comprehend or apply knowledge in other domains.

'Professionals' can only parrot what they have been taught and are unable (not in all cases of course just in general) to synthestize new information or cross domains and see with clarity any reality outside their own.

originally posted by: Aazadan

originally posted by: Bhadhidar
a reply to: FyreByrd

I work with a segment of the public that one would expect to be quite literate: CPA's, and tax attorneys.

Unfortunately, the degree to which that expectation is disproved, on a daily basis, leaves me to fearfully wonder for the security of the public's financial health.

I've lost count of how many so-called "professionals" I've (attempted) to communicate with who can neither speak, nor write, in coherent English.

Many cannot even "sound out" relatively common words.

And I am talking about native speakers!

And it is getting worse.

I don't know that it's getting worse, it's just changing. The written word is evolving fast, from texting to emoji's to spell check it's becoming less important than ever to know how to actually spell something. What matters is that you can communicate the idea.

I'll grant that a lot of people are bad at writing, but I think they were always bad. They were probably better spellers in the past, but not necessarily better communicators.

Actually you present a very valid point. As Leonard Shlain points out in his excellent book, "The Alphabet Vs The Goddess"
written language began as pictographs in more matriarchal times and as societies changed to more 'symbolic' 'alphabetic' forms - more linear forms society moved into a patriarchal/authoritarian norms such as we see fighting for survival in today society.

Perhaps language is reflect a move to a more Partnership (see Riane Eisler) structure in society that is reflected in a new perhaps more 3D language.

originally posted by: rukia
a reply to: FyreByrd

Yes. But, then again, look at what happened to poor Socrates.

One might say that heteronymous agents have always made up the majority, with us autonomous moral agents being the minority. It's nothing new, I think.

Certainly, it makes the masses easy to control. But they do it to themselves. It's called not thinking or using one's brain.

On the flip side, I think too much, and that isn't all roses.

Ignorance certainly is bliss.

Reading is a necessary but not sufficient condition of literacy.

This sentence of yours, for all the fancy words used, says:

That different but similar people or agents have always made up the majority but individual people are the minority.

By using 'us' and moral with 'autonomous agents' you imply some superiority in that position but, in fact - and in the context of this thread - are irrelevant to a discussion of literacy.

Literacy requires much more then simple reading or vocabulary, it requires syntax, context and meaning. I believe it also requires communicability.