I think that technology and what is known has increase by an order of magnitude in the past few decades. Look at your parents high school text books and then look at your children's or grand-children's. The mass of knowledge and learning needed to be effective in today's society has increased year after year. I'm not sure its as simple as folks not learning to speak more formal english, as much as having to learn so much of everything else.
Civilization on a global scale is making accommodations for the information overload. This has had an impact not only on our teaching and learning english but on the value of formal english in society. For more and more folks there is a feeling that they can't know enough. We are incresingly dependent on things we can't understand. It is not that those things can't be understood, it is simply that we no longer have the time to learn all that is known or all that we even need to know.
For me, I think its part of the reason we see such an outpouring artistic forms. I think the expansion of styles, genres, forms, area's of art, formal and informal, is because folks are trying to make connections and find meaning. If I look at just the types of music in America, classical, blues, jazz, hip hop, blue grass, country and western, cajon, irish, hard rock, soft rock, metal, punk, hip-hop, rap, old-time, techno, reggae, R&B, disco & dance, gospel, show tunes, punk rock, new wave, ska, latin, african, world beat,
just to start the list. Most of us can find a tune, song, that will remind us of still another genre. All this music flurishing in our culture, mixing, defining, expressing, connecting us. I think this is in part a response to the fact that no sane person thinks they can know enough to make sense of everything that is happening. So we find that sense of meaning not in our cognative abilities but rather in our art.
With globalization, as it becomes more important to communicate with everyone, it also becomes more important to communicate with those close to us, our neigbor hood, social group, family. With the rise of a global economies we also are seeing the rise of global social and political structures, being part of a family, a neighborhood, a social or other small group is manageable. Being a single member in a society of 6-8 billion holds no meaning for many, and yet today we find we must find meaning for membership in global structures. As the pressure to become a miniscule part of the mass (6-8 billion) increases, I'd expect a balancing pressure for the individual to also re-affirm his connections to smaller worlds. In connecting to local structures, family, friends, neighborhoods, learning to speak their english instead of the king's english, becomes more important. The farther away we feel from the king the less important his formalities seem, at least for the king's english.
I guess, what I'm trying to say is that science and technology has given us so much more to learn, including communication technology that give us so many more to learn it with and about. Even if we don't know as much about some areas, such as formal grammer, as previous generations, we still have so much more to learn about everything.
I hope this makes some sense to some folks. Maybe it just my inclinations that grew from formative years that included books like <u>Future Shock</u> and <u>Stranger in a Strange Land</u>.
In my view, it takes more that head space these days to survive. These days heart space is at a premium and one way to expand that is to ...
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Enjoy Your Music,<br><br><b>Lee Marsh</b><br><font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: LeeMarsh on 2002-10-15 16:10 ]</font>
As I write this I ask myself, why I haven't been back?" Sadly, I can think of lots of lame excuses but not a single good reason. 
