...Political leaders in our post-literate society no longer need to be competent, sincere or honest. They only need to appear to have these qualities. Most of all they need a story, a narrative. The reality of the narrative is irrelevant. It can be completely at odds with the facts. The consistency and emotional appeal of the story are paramount. The most essential skill in political theater and the consumer culture is artifice. Those who are best at artifice succeed. Those who have not mastered the art of artifice fail. In an age of images and entertainment, in an age of instant emotional gratification, we do not seek or want honesty. We ask to be indulged and entertained by clichés, stereotypes and mythic narratives that tell us we can be whomever we want to be, that we live in the greatest country on Earth, that we are endowed with superior moral and physical qualities and that our glorious future is preordained, either because of our attributes as Americans or because we are blessed by God or both...
And don't think that we've got anything to be complacent about on this side of the pond...
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3 comments:
I was going to say, that sounds awfully familiar, and I wouldn't be pointing fingers.
The statistics bandied about in the article you linked to are interesting.
"There are over 42 million American adults, 20 percent of whom hold high school diplomas, who cannot read, as well as the 50 million who read at a fourth- or fifth-grade level."
So more than 92 million Americans are essentially illiterate. I find these numbers to be extremely suspect, not least because the author carefully avoids any mention of his sources, but let us assume for one moment that they are accurate.
According to the US Census Bureau, there are about 300 million people in the US, and about 75 million are 17 years old or less. Is the author actually claiming that close to half of all adults in America cannot read, or is he including EVERYONE in his statistics, even babes in arms that have not uttered their first word?
It would certainly make sense that many people would read at the same level as a young schoolchild if they are, indeed, still young children going to school.
There are also at least 12 million illegal aliens in the US at the moment, and that is an extremely conservative figure. Most originally hail from Mexico, a 3rd world country where the population is not known for their English reading skills. Are these people also included in his statistics? I bet they would skew the results a bit if they are.
But what really made me roll my eyes and snort in a gesture of disgust was this line...
"A third of high school graduates, along with 42 percent of college graduates, never read a book after they finish school."
Never, ever, in their entire lives? They get the sheepskin and never read a spy novel, or a biography, or a how-to book?
Somebody wake me when this guy lands on Earth.
James
Illiteracy in America is still growing at an alarming rate and that fact has not changed much since Rudolf Flesch wrote his best-selling expose of reading instruction in 1955. Illiteracy continues to be a critical problem, demanding enormous resources from local, state, and federal taxes, while arguments about how to teach children to read continue to rage within the education research community, on Capitol Hill, in business, and in the classroom.
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kimrennin
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