david_h wrote:Nanohedron wrote:Then let me repeat myself: The reason - and these are actual cases - is people not knowing the meaning of commonplace words like "addiction" and "lame", or thinking that "savage" is obsolete. I might give a pass on not knowing "smokescreen", but just barely.
I haven't come across anything like that in the UK. Could it be just a change of vocabulary in the USA? Presumably people still talk about these things. What words
do they use?
I can assure you I have no earthly idea. That's why these cases stick out so.
s1m0n wrote:Nano is judging the best educated of his generation against the worst of the next, and then breaking into a full bore chorus of
We Are the Champions, which is fairly ridiculous.
Only
fairly ridiculous? That's being damned with the faintest praise possible.
You really don't get me, do you. This has nothing to do with being better than anyone. Is everything about competition to you? And you still avoid my assertion about the role of social pressure in dumbing-down. When you avoid things in this way, and then even stoop to schoolyard-level mockery, I come to suspect I've made a point after all.
I have only been suggesting that social pressure plays a role in either maintaining ignorance, or in feigning it, and that I think there are very real gaps in the US educational system that need to be addressed. How you extrapolate this into generational differences is beyond me, when it is in fact a multi-generational issue. I really don't know how much clearer I could be.
If you thinks social pressure happens only among the young, or that it's the only kind that counts, think again.
s1m0n wrote:Nano, when you and I went to high school, 15-30% of the population wasn't even allowed to enter academic high school. They were streamed off into technical school and taught a trade, like upholstery or cooking.
Not true in the US, and I'm not sure what you mean by "allowed" (by whom? The system? Parents? Circumstances?). In the US - at least where I grew up, and most of us were bog-standard, proletarian middle/working class - those who didn't attend high school were in a much smaller minority than your figures. Public high school in the US is free for everyone, so taking advantage is a no-brainer, because the more education, the more it increases your chances to improve your lot, and this was not to be wasted (not that the student necessarily sees it that way, of course). It was, and I wager still is, considered highly unusual - so much so that it was almost unheard of - indeed unfortunate, or even backward, not to attend high school. Consequently, the end of high school was the customary time to decide if you went on to college or straight into the workforce, and to this day, high school graduation marks the cultural passage into adult status for us. Even though an 8th grade education was and still is considered the barest minimum acceptable, if you went into the trades without attending or graduating high school, people talked.
If you went that route, usually it was out of hardship and you had to help support your family. Last I checked, it's still that way.
s1m0n wrote:Your error is that you're judging the best of your generation (you) against the worst of the next. I can guarrantee you that in the next generations, there are more 'literate' writers (as you'd put it) and better stylists than you or I will ever be. Likewise, there will be hundreds who are much, much worse. Comparing across generations is useless. You and they don't even agree on what's important, or correct.
There you go again, insisting that this is generational when I've taken pains to point out cases from my own. Until you drop that repetitive new-vs.-old cant, I'm afraid I just won't be able to take you seriously any more.
Let me offer another case (from my own general age bracket,
again ): I was working in a factory, and one time at lunch break shared an amusing comic strip with a coworker. He looked at it uncomfortably, and blushing, finally muttered, "I don't get it." At first I didn't understand, because the comic strip, as most are, was quite simple. Turns out the poor guy couldn't read,
and he'd gone through high school. Up to then I had no idea. My friend could sign his name, knew the value of his paycheck, and had enough of a working knowledge of what the road signs meant so he could drive, but that was about it. In short, the system had failed him because it allowed him to get by without being able to read. Fortunately for him it was just between the two of us when I found out what he was up against, because our coworkers loved being brutal at the slightest opportunity. You can bet
he doesn't do any texting or email, and he'll have to say it's because he doesn't like it. This is an extreme case and as such it falls outside my social-pressure assertion, but the social climate didn't provide any real incentives for him to change it, either. The point is that he will not have been the only one, then or now. This isn't generational. It's systemic.
You say that the next generation will provide writers that are better than found in my own. That's a pretty confident prediction to make on conjecture, but I certainly hope you're right, because each generation standing on the shoulders of the last is the way it ought to be. But let's start with being on par, first.
s1m0n wrote:If you're going to generalise, you need to generalise about everybody, not just the best.
And if
you're going to generalize, you need to start with what I'm actually talking about. I'm only talking about basic competency, not "the best", whoever they are. You can't call illiteracy basic competency, and cite "the next generation" as your proof. Not only is the logic unconvincing (to put it mildly); it is an insult to them.
david_h wrote:I think that social media, text, email etc mean that more people are writing and reading. Thirty years ago, unless it was part of their work, many people didn't write much more that the occasional postcard to friends and family, often not very well. We get to read more bad writing. Is the better writing getting worse, as opposed to just different?
Good point, and I'm afraid I don't have enough to forward an opinion. Perhaps this is what s1m0n means by "more literate". It would be nice if he would clarify, but since he seems satisfied to leave us to guess, let's just go ahead and assume that's what he meant, because it seems to fit.
To me, literacy is not at all the same as communicative activity. Activity is a sure
sign of literacy of at least some kind, but increased activity just makes us busier, not
more literate. Literacy is tools and comprehension skills, not mere output and consumption. Just as with food, you can produce and consume the bad just as well as the good, but no one mistakes production and consumption for the food itself. Literacy is
how you produce and consume, and that is where tools and means come in. If you can't understand what you're reading or hearing, or can't say what you mean clearly, that cannot be an advance of any kind. It is the opposite, a disadvantage. But if you won't improve your situation for fear that people will call you showy for simply daring to think for yourself, that's even worse. That's what I've been trying to say all this time. I'm not all that concerned with spelling. Not everyone finds spelling to be easy, and fair enough. If you misspell, at least you're trying. But grammar, vocabulary, and punctuation are trickier to let slide. If you use a word wrongly, like "flaunt the rules" when you mean "flout", or write "Take time to eat people!" or "Get 'fresh' fish here", it's not someone else's fault if they misunderstand you. When it's anyone's guess, it matters. After all, in keeping with all the sins that s1m0n has been pleased to lay on my doorstep, it would be grammatically correct of him were he to add to the list by accusing me of flaunting the rules.
OTOH, when I can't comprehend the new, I suppose that puts me in the same boat. But the point is I can correct it, and I do, because curiosity is the better part of knowledge, and as they say, knowledge is power. So I think I'm still making my point, which is: fergodsakes, don't put an end to learning. Don't be content with your horizon, whether it's old or new. Resist the social pressure to settle for less when reason is at stake. Be curious. And if it means learning you've been wrong about something? That's good, because now you're that much less ignorant. Man up, and move onward and upward. That's the distillation of everything I've put forth, here.
"If you take music out of this world, you will have nothing but a ball of fire." - Balochi musician