Wired In?

The ideas of the first two chapters of The Gutenberg Elegies (Sven Birkets) are neither original nor true. He, like so many of his bitter peers, believe that this new generation, the “age of technology”, is uninterested, unimaginative, and anti-intellectual. He, in a highly-bitter sentiment that we’ve all heard before, thinks that our electronics are distracting from or even replacing imagination and learning. While there may be some truth to this statement (although much less severe than he makes it out to be), the benefits of technology in terms of promoting reading and learning completely overshadow their distractions. Birkets is blinded conceit, by his stubbornness towards change, and by his “my generation is superior to yours” complex.

Birkets argues that when he was a child, he didn’t have such distractions as we do today, and he therefore turned to books and stories for his entertainment. The implication here is that somehow reading something on physical pages of paper is somehow a much different, superior way of reading something than reading it on a computer, a kindle, etc. He also seems to just be ignoring the fact that the TV can be used as a fantastic medium for great works of film, such as Casablanca, Laurence of Arabia, Gone With the Wind, etc. He seems to just toss out everything on the TV as mindless distractions, which is simply not fair.

Birkets thinks that younger people reading fewer books means less reading, and yet from around when he was a young man, the 1970s, to present day, the worldwide literacy rate has increased 22%. There is no doubt that, overall, people are actually reading more today than they ever have, just not necessarily ONLY in the form of print-paper books. One could argue that this is a mere coincidental correlation with the increase in technology, as apposed to being directly related. To that I would say that today’s technology absolutely promotes reading. Give someone access to the internet and suddenly they have access to hundreds of libraries worth of literature, to millions and millions of differing ideas and opinions, to guides and help in hundreds of languages. The idea that computers are only making us stupider is a boring, incorrect and outdated opinion.

I think that there is a key difference between understanding and mastery. Berry states that he finds it absurd that “that if a student is not going to become a teacher of his language, he has no need to master it”. I cannot see what problem he has with this concept. Should we all master mathematics and sciences and economics as well because they play such important roles in our lives? No, I don’t think so. I think that a core understanding of each is all that is necessary unless one chooses to work towards mastery (to, say, become a professor of that study).

Berry complains about the “published illiteracies of the certified educated”. What an epidemic. I can’t help but feel more concern over entirely illiterate and impoverished peoples not only of the United States but across the globe, but I suppose occasional spelling mistakes among the highly educated is an important problem most certainly worth debating over.

 

I think that there is a core of literacy skills that every english-speaking person should aspire to, and that’s that. Mastery is optional, reserved for those who wish to pursue it, whether they be writers, professors, journalists, or they just choose to. 

Hidden Intellectualism (Gerald Graff)

• One of the main points Graff emphasizes is that intelligence comes in a variety of forms, and some forms are more obvious (or more accepted) than others.
• He points out that obviously society holds the typical educated, school-system “book-smarts” intelligence as the main form of intelligence
• Other forms of intelligence, (sports, art, music, etc.) can be consider hidden, either because they aren’t immediately obvious or because they aren’t recognized.
• I know that it sounds negative, but I believe that the way that American school systems work today, almost every child is taught to believe that they are smart which is admittedly good or self-confidence,  but in the end there is no substitute for hard work and people who sail through easy courses believing themselves to be gifted, advanced, above-average, etc. may be in for a serious wake-up call
• I believe in the term “hidden-intellectual”, but I don’t think most people who believe they are actually are. I think Van Gogh was a hidden intellectual. I think that someone that fails school and claims that their intelligence was just hidden and the school couldn’t recognize it are bitter.