The Civilization of Illiteracy | Page 5

exciting, though confusing, tomorrow-is probably more
difficult to understand than to live with. Reluctance to acknowledge
change only makes things worse. We notice that literate language use
does not work as we assume or were told it should, and wonder what
can be done to make things fit our expectations. Parents hope that
better schools with better teachers will remedy the situation. Teachers
expect more from the family and suggest that society should invest
more in order to maintain literacy skills. Professors groan under the
prospect of ill-prepared students entering college. Publishers redefine
their strategies as new forms of expression and communication vie for
public attention and dollars. Lawyers, journalists, the military, and
politicians worry about the role and functions of language in society.
Probably most concerned with their own roles in the social structure
and with the legitimacy of their institutions, they would preserve those

structures of human activity that justify literacy and thus their own
positions of power and influence. The few who believe that literacy
comprises not only skills, but also ideals and values, say that the
destiny of our civilization is at stake, and that the decline in literacy has
dreadful implications. Opportunity is not part of the discourse or
argument.
The major accomplishment of analyzing illiteracy so far has been the
listing of symptoms: the decrease in functional literacy; a general
degradation of writing skills and reading comprehension; an alarming
increase of packaged language (clich‚s used in speeches, canned
messages); and a general tendency to substitute visual media
(especially television and video) for written language. Parallel to
scholarship on the subject, a massive but unfocused public opinion
campaign has resulted in all kinds of literacy enterprises. Frequently
using stereotypes that in themselves affect language quality, such
enterprises plead for teaching adults who cannot read or write, for
improving language study in all grades, and for raising public
awareness of illiteracy and its various implications. Still, we do not
really understand the necessary character of the decline of literacy.
Historic and systematic aspects of functional illiteracy, as well as
language degradation, are minimally addressed. They are phenomena
that affect not only the United States. Countries with a long cultural
tradition, and which make the preservation and literate use of language
a public institution, experience them as well.
My interest in the subject of illiteracy was triggered by two factors: the
personal experience of being uprooted from an East European culture
that stubbornly defended and maintained rigid structures of literacy;
and involvement in what are commonly described as new technologies.
I ended up in the USA, a land of unstructured and flawed literacy, but
also one of amazing dynamics. Here I joined those who experienced the
consequences of the low quality of education, as well as the opening of
new opportunities. The majority of these are disconnected from what is
going on in schools and universities. This is how and why I started
thinking, like many others, about alternatives.

My Mayflower (if I may use the analogy to the Pilgrims) brought me to
individuals who do many things-shop, work, play or watch sports,
travel, go to church, even love-with an acute sense of immediacy.
Worshippers of the instant, my new compatriots served as a contrast to
those who, on the European continent I came from, conscientiously
strive for permanency-of family, work, values, tools, homes, appliances,
cars, buildings. In contrast, the USA is a place where everything is the
present, the coming moment. Not only television programs and
advertisements made me aware of this fact. Books are as permanent as
their survival on bestseller lists. The market, with its increasingly
breathtaking fluctuations, might today celebrate a company that
tomorrow disappears for good. Commencement ceremonies, family life,
business commitments, religious practice, succeeding fashions, songs,
presidents, denture creams, car models, movies, and practically
everything else embody the same obsession. Language and literacy
could not escape this obsession with change. Because of my work as a
university professor, I was in the trenches where battles of literacy are
fought. That is where I came to realize that a better curriculum,
multicultural or not, or better paid teachers, or cheaper and better books
could make a difference, but would not change the outcome.
The decline of literacy is an encompassing phenomenon impossible to
reduce to the state of education, to a nation's economic rank, to the
status of social, ethnic, religious, or racial groups, to a political system,
or to cultural history. There was life before literacy and there will be
life after it. In fact, it has already begun. Let us not forget that literacy
is a relatively late acquisition in human culture. The time preceding
writing is 99% of the entire story of the human being. My position in
the discussion is one of questioning historic continuity as a premise for
literacy.