The Civilization of Illiteracy | Page 6

If we can understand what the end of literacy as we know it
means in practical terms, we will avoid further lamentation and initiate
a course of action from which all can benefit. Moreover, if we can get
an idea of what to expect beyond the safe haven now fading on the
horizon, then we will be able to come up with improved, more effective
models of education. At the same time, we will comprehend what
individuals need in order to successfully ascertain their manifold nature.
Improved human interaction, for which new technologies are

plentifully available, should be the concrete result of this understanding
of the end of the civilization of literacy.
The first irony of any publication on illiteracy is that it is inaccessible
to those who are the very subject of the concern of literacy partisans.
Indeed, the majority of the millions active on the Internet read at most a
3-sentence short paragraph. The attention span of students in high
school and universities is not much shorter than that of their instructors:
one typed page. Legislators, no less than bureaucrats, thrive on
executive summaries. A 30-second TV spot is many times more
influential than a 4-column in- depth article. But those who give life
and dynamics to reality use means other than those whose continued
predominance this book questions.
The second irony is that this book also presents arguments which are,
in their logical sequence, dependent on the conventions of reading and
writing. As a medium for constituting and interpreting history, writing
definitely influences how we think and what we think about. I
wondered how my arguments would hold up in an interactive,
non-linear medium of communication, in which we can question each
other, and which also makes authorship, if not irrelevant, the last thing
someone would worry about. Since I have used language to think
through this book, I know that it would make less sense in a different
medium.
This leads me to state from the outset-almost as
self-encouragement-that literacy, whose end I discuss, will not
disappear. For some, Literacy Studies will become a new specialty, as
Sanskrit or Ancient Greek has become for a handful of experts. For
others, it will become a skill, as it is already for editors, proofreaders,
and professional writers. For the majority, it will continue in literacies
that facilitate the use and integration of new media and new forms of
communication and interpretation. The utopian in me says that we will
find ways to reinvent literacy, if not save it. It has played a major role
in leading to the new civilization we are entering. The realist
acknowledges that new times and challenges require new means to
cope with their complexity. Reluctance to acknowledge change does

not prevent it from coming about. It only prevents us from making the
best of it.
Probably my active practice of literacy has been matched by all those
means, computer-based or not, for coping with complexity, to whose
design and realization I contributed. This book is not an exercise in
prophesying a brave new world of people happy to know less but all
that they have to know when they need to. Neither is it about
individuals who are superficial but who adapt more easily to change,
mediocre but extremely competitive. Its subject is language and
everything pertaining to it: family and sexuality, politics, the market,
what and how we eat, how we dress, the wars we fight, love, sports,
and more. It is a book about ourselves who give life to words whenever
we speak, write, or read. We give life to images, sounds, textures, to
multimedia and virtual reality involving ourselves in new interactions.
Transcending boundaries of literacy in practical experiences for which
literacy is no longer appropriate means, ultimately, to grow into a new
civilization.
Progressing towards illiteracy?
Here is as good a place as any to explain my perspective. Language
involves human beings in all their aspects: biology, sense of space and
time, cognitive and manual skills, emotional resources, sensitivity,
tendency to social interaction and political organization. But what best
defines our relation to language is the pragmatics of our existence. Our
continuous self-constitution through what we do, why we do, and how
we do all we actually do-in short, human pragmatics-involves language,
but is not reducible to it. The pragmatic perspective I assume originated
with Charles Sanders Peirce. When I began teaching in the USA, my
American colleagues and students did not know who he was. The
semiotic implications of this text relate to his work. Questioning how
knowledge is shared, Peirce noticed that, without talking about the
bearers of our knowledge-all the sign carriers we constitute-we would
not be able to figure out how results of our inquiries are integrated in
our deeds, actions, and theories.
Language and the formation