The prompt for this blog post asks what we find troubling in Chris Hedges’s “America the Illiterate” and frankly there’s not much there that I don’t find troubling. For starters, the fact that 80% of families in America did not buy a single book last year frightens me. What is happening to our society? If one third of our nation’s population is illiterate, who is going to lead our country in the future? Who will be the innovators of tomorrow, certainly not one third of the population?
I do agree with Hedge and Carr that the Internet is contributing to this growing rate of illiteracy, however I believe there are other factors contributing to this issue. I think a big portion of the problem comes from families not having enough money to send their kids to elementary school. Also some schools do not get enough money from the government to pay for the necessary books and supplies. I would imagine that a lot of the population that is illiterate does not even have access to the Internet. I don’t know. Those are pretty large assumptions to make without any evidence to back them up but that’s just what I believe, or would like to believe at least.
Both Carr and Hedge pretty openly blame the Internet for making America stupid. Carr presents both sides of the argument: that the Internet is both helpful and harmful. Hedge writes with more aggression and statistical evidence of how our country is evolving in the wrong direction. One fact that really put it all into perspective was the study of vocabulary from past presidential debates. The fact that the Lincoln- Douglas debate scored in between 11 and 12th grade vocabulary level and the Bush-Gore debate only scored in between 6 and 7th grade level scared me. Is our country really that dumb? I sure hope not. In recent years have the candidates really dumbed themselves down simply because such a large portion of our population could not understand them otherwise? Then what is going to happen ten years from now, presidential candidates speaking at a first grade level? I hope someday soon more people realize what is going on and make major changes to the way we use technology.
I completely agree with your take on these articles. I had a similar perspective. Do you agree that Hedge's article seems driven by the negative facts about our society? Yes, the facts are troubling and need work but I think he comes across extremely negative. The speech level in president debates I found very interesting and wondered the same thing: What is going to happen down the road for us as a society?
ReplyDeleteYes I found Hedge's entire article very negative and angry, almost like he is punishing us. I felt like I was being scolded for relying on the Internet too often.
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