The PIAAC literacy framework expands on the definition of literacy previously used in [the International Adult Literacy Survey] and [the Adult Literacy and Lifeskills Survey]. PIAAC broadly defines literacy as “understanding, evaluating, using and engaging with written text to participate in society, to achieve one’s goals and to develop one’s knowledge and potential…”
— from the 2013 report, ‘Literacy, Numeracy, and Problem Solving in Technology-Rich Environments Among US Adults’, which you can download here.
We noted, in Part One, that — according to at least one study of literacy in the US — 50% of Americans cannot read and understand a book written at what our public schools consider “eighth grade level.”
It seems possible that most US adults cannot fully understand the two sentences quoted at the very top of this morning’s article.
I can’t claim to understand America’s lack of literacy. The nation’s failure — if, indeed, we are failing — is an incredibly complex issue, dependent as it is upon changes in family structure, changes in our public education system, changes in the type of college graduates we are producing, changes in information technology and delivery, changes in the distribution of wealth, changes in the nation’s leadership, and dozens of other factors.
It would appear, from articles published in certain news magazines and newspapers, that the person who was elected to lead the nation over the past four years — President Donald John Trump — may have been functionally illiterate. From a 2018 article by David Graham in The Atlantic:
Ahead of the election, the editors of this magazine wrote that the Republican candidate “appears not to read.” Before the inauguration, Trump told Axios, “I like bullets or I like as little as possible. I don’t need, you know, 200-page reports on something that can be handled on a page. That I can tell you.” In February, The New York Times reported that National Security Council members had been instructed to keep policy papers to a single page and include lots of graphics and maps…
In his 2018 book about President Trump, Fire and Fury, author Michael Wolff quoted economic advisor Gary Cohen:
It’s worse than you can imagine… Trump won’t read anything — not one-page memos, not the brief policy papers, nothing…
All of which begs the question: Has reading become unnecessary? If a person unwilling to read two-page memos can direct the federal government for four years, and nearly be re-elected to another four-year term… is that evidence that America has outgrown the written word? (Other than 280-character tweets, of course…)
Perhaps the answer to that question reflects the same demographic and cultural divide in evidence during our recent political election.
Here’s a quick overview of an incredibly complex matter:
Some of us may have formed ideas about the history of human communication. (Whether those ideas are realistic depends, I suppose, on the accuracy of the materials to which we’ve been exposed.) Archaeologists have suggested that the record-keeping technology known as “writing” developed independently in at least four ancient civilizations: in Mesopotamia (around 3400 BC), in Egypt (around 3250 BC), in China (around 1200 BC), and in lowland areas of Southern Mexico and Guatemala (around 1000 BC). Writing samples that have come down to us from these ancient civilizations sometimes deal with historical events — wars and changes of political leadership — but some samples appear related to business contracts and bookkeeping.
While writing — and reading — went through millennium-long processes of development, historical record-keeping and news distribution in most places relied upon oral transmission and shared communal memorization. Oral methods of transmitting important cultural information within a language group were never replaced by writing (whenever a culture finally adopted writing as a communications technique). Oral histories and other important information continues to spread via the spoken word to this very day, greatly amplified by electronic technologies: telephone, radio, TV, online YouTube videos.
But the written word maintains a special (and perhaps undeserved) authority in most people’s minds. When, for example, an online news commentator wants to give their oral story or option added weight and influence, they will often quote for this or that written record, from a published report or document. Many times, during a YouTube video or TV news program, we will be treated to a string of written text, splashed across the screen…
…Are we more prone to believe something if it’s presented to us as written text?
The written word is, I think, imbued with a certain magical quality that we normally don’t assign to verbal communication. I assume this magical quality is connected with its temporal permanence, rather than with its veracity. Because the purely spoken word. when recalled at a future date, is subject to the well-known corruptions of memory and intention, while the written word remains safely unchanged, we have come to rely more heavily on written documentation when we expect the communication to be of continuing importance.
But of course, the written word can contain lies, innuendos, rumors and inaccurate information, just as easily as the spoken word can. Historically, the unusual power of the written word comes not so much from its credibility and truthfulness, but from its permanence — and its ability to be copied and widely distributed — two qualities that, historically, the spoken word did not possess.
But we’re living during a new paradigm shift. Thanks to electronic technology, the spoken word — whether whispered, shouted, or sung — can now be preserved using various forms of recording media, and the preserved audio or video recordings can be copied and widely distributed, often just as easily and conveniently as we copy and distribute the written word.
Does the written word have any magic left? Other than its historical, traditional authority?
Have we come to a place where Johnny no longer needs to read?