Frightening Revelations on the Illiteracy of America

Hedge's idea of literacy is the ability to "function in a print based" world combined with the ability to "cope with complexity" and "separate illusion from truth." This is a fair way to describe literacy in my opinion. Although this may be true, this definition of literacy raises, and rightly so, a red flag among Americans. Because as Hedge said, the majority of Americans "exist in a non-reality-based belief system." These people do not possess the "intellectual tools" required to be literate. It is a sad state of affairs when there are "42 million American adults, 20 percent of whom hold high school diplomas, who cannot read." This in essence sums up Hedge's critique of American culture. There should not be this many illiterate people, period. Especially not people who have graduated high school. Clearly our school systems are failing at their most basic duty. And since there is such a high illiteracy rate in our nation we are failing in other facets of life, such as political participation, intellectual advancement, ect.

To me the whole idea that this article had to be written is troubling. When our nation is having such a problem with literacy that there is an article written to wave the red flag, then something is horribly wrong. The whole basis of the society is communicate. Literacy to communication is like water to living organisms, essential. So with literacy on the wane its no suprise that we have become a image-based culture. Even though this image-based culture is more easily accessible, it neglects our intellect. Our minds are no longer stimulated by political debate. Rather our minds are stimulated by "cheap slogans" and "reassuring personal narratives." Although I agree that this trend is troubling, I do not see the "awful reality" that Hedge does. I believe that if intellectuals begin to push back, demanding a more literate culture with more stimulating information sources, the trend can be reversed.

The correlation that I fould between Hedge's article and Carr's was the topic itself. The idea that this instant age of flashy information rather than meaningful information is simliar to Carr's speculation on our shallow reading habits. That being said I believe that Hedge sees the "awful reality" as inevitable. On the other hand Carr seems to believe that there is a chance for us to revert back to reading for deeper meaning and being more literate.