The Civilization of Illiteracy | Page 7

and expression of ideas is unique to

humans in that they define a part of the cognitive dimension of our
pragmatic. We seem endowed with language, as we are with hearing,
sight, touch, smell, and taste. But behind the appearance is a process
through which human self-constitution led to the possibility and
necessity of language, as it led to the humanization of our senses.
Furthermore, it led to the means by which we constitute ourselves as
literate as the pragmatics of our existence requires under ever-changing
circumstances. The appearance is that literacy is a useful tool, when in
fact it results in the pragmatic context. We can use a hammer or a
computer, but we are our language. The experience of language extends
to the experience of the logic it embodies, as well as to that of the
institutions that language and literacy made possible. These, in turn,
influence what we are and how we think, what we do and why we do.
So does every tool, appliance, and machine we use, and so do all the
people with whom we interact. Our interactions with people, with
nature, or with artifacts we ourselves generated further affect the
pragmatic self-constitution of our identity.
The literate experience of language enhanced our cognitive capabilities.
Consequently, literacy became larger than life. Much is covered by the
practice of literacy: tradition, culture, thoughts and feelings, human
expression through literature, the constitution of political, scientific,
and artistic programs, ethics, the practical experience of law. In this
book, I use a broad definition of literacy that reflects the many facets it
has acquired over time. Those readers who think I stretch the term
literacy too far should keep in mind all that literacy comprises in our
culture. In contrast, illiteracy, no matter what its cause or what other
attributes an individual labeled illiterate has, is seen as something
harmful and shameful, to be avoided at any price. Without an
understanding that encompasses our values and ways of thinking, we
cannot perceive how a civilization can progress to illiteracy. Many
people are willing to be part of post- literate society, but by no means
are they willing to be labeled members of a civilization qualified as
illiterate.
By civilization of illiteracy I mean one in which literate characteristics
no longer constitute the underlying structure of effective practical

experiences. Furthermore, I mean a civilization in which no one
literacy dominates, as it did until around the turn of the century, and
still does. This domination takes place through imposition of its rules,
which prevent practical experiences of human self-constitution in
domains where literacy has exhausted its potential or is impotent. In
describing the post-literate, I know that any metaphor will do as long as
it does not call undue attention to itself. What counts is not the
provocativeness but that we lift our gaze, determined to see, not just to
look for the comforting familiar.
This civilization of illiteracy is one of many literacies, each with its
own characteristics and rules of functioning. Some of such partial
literacies are based on configurational modes of expression, as in the
written languages of Japan, China, or Korea; on visual forms of
communication; or on synesthetic communication involving a
combination of our senses. Some are numerical and rely on a different
notation system than that of literacy. The civilization of illiteracy
comprises experiences of thinking and working above and beyond
language, as mathematicians from different countries communicating
perfectly through mathematical formulae demonstrate. Or as we
experience in activities where the visual, digitally processed, supports a
human pragmatics of increased efficiency. Even in its primitive, but
extremely dynamic, deployment, the Internet embodies the directions
and possibilities of such a civilization. This brings us back to literacy's
reason for being: pragmatics expressed in methods for increasing
efficiency, of ensuring a desired outcome, be this in regard to a list of
merchandise, a deed, instructions on how to make something or to
carry out an act, a description of a place, poetry and drama, philosophy,
the recording and dissemination of history and abstract ideas,
mythology, stories and novels, laws, and customs. Some of these
products of literacy are simply no longer necessary. That new methods
and technologies of a digital nature effectively constitute an alternative
to literacy cannot be overemphasized.
I started this book convinced that the price we pay for the human
tendency to efficiency-that is, our striving for more and more at an ever
cheaper price-is literacy and the values connected to it as represented

by tradition, books, art, family, philosophy, ethics, among many others.
We are confronted with the increased speed and shorter durations of
human interactions. A growing number and a variety of mediating
elements in human praxis challenge our understanding of what we do.
Fragmentation and interconnectedness of the world, the new
technology