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The Erosion of Deep Literacy

nationalaffairs.com

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Re: The Erosion of Deep Literacy

#71

Post by abdusco »

MajorBee wrote: post #67

Unrelated to the content of the article -- it appears that the font used in the article has (some) letters "dipping down" below others; for example, the "t" and "i" in "noticing" don't have their bottoms at quite the same level. I don't know if this is just an illusion caused by font thickness or if this is stylistic choice, but I've seen a few of these styles floating around (usually in these "serious" longform arti…

It might simply be a side effect of text rendering/hinting. The text looks flawless on my phone's display (>400 dpi pixel density)

Re: The Erosion of Deep Literacy

#72

Post by LudwigNagasena »

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #70
LudwigNagasena wrote: post #49

There are over 4 million of people with PhD only in the US, whopping 14% of the population, that’s more than the percentage of people with a comparable level education in any other period of history in any part of the world. This makes the whole premise of this article seem very dubious.

4 million is a bit over 1% of the US population, not 14%.

Sure, I wanted to say that 14% of population have a postgraduate degree, i.e. masters or higher.

Re: The Erosion of Deep Literacy

#73

Post by LudwigNagasena »

glial wrote: post #65
LudwigNagasena wrote: post #49

There are over 4 million of people with PhD only in the US, whopping 14% of the population, that’s more than the percentage of people with a comparable level education in any other period of history in any part of the world. This makes the whole premise of this article seem very dubious.

Curious where you get your numbers, because I think they're wrong.

14% have a postgraduated degree, I jumbled my thoughts into an obviously wrong sentence.

Re: The Erosion of Deep Literacy

#74

Post by DubiousPusher »

bem94 wrote: post #32
DubiousPusher wrote: post #12

This article makes far reaching societal claims with essentially no evidence. The evidence presented is in the form of "feelings" of various writers concerned of their own decline in literaryfocus. An unvoiced assumption that people were historically more literate pervades the entire article. As a former lit. major I used to buy into this kind of thing. But I now think this belief is the product of profound selection…

> This article makes far reaching societal claims with essentially no evidence. The evidence presented is in the form of "feelings" of various writers concerned of their own decline in literaryfocus. From quite far down in the article, under "Concrete Thinking": > As it is, we now have greater levels of at least superficial participation in political discourse, if not in politics itself, thanks in part to social-medi…

You'll have to forgive me but I can still remember when millions of people listened to, called into and cranked each other up on late night radio. The existence of a conspiracy touting ignor-mob-us is hardly concrete evidence of informational decline.

It is possible that social media has intensified this problem. Perhaps more cranks can crank harder together now than before or perhaps not. But "just look at all the people on Facebook" isn't material comparative evidence.

Re: The Erosion of Deep Literacy

#75

Post by DubiousPusher »

314 wrote: post #33
DubiousPusher wrote: post #12

This article makes far reaching societal claims with essentially no evidence. The evidence presented is in the form of "feelings" of various writers concerned of their own decline in literaryfocus. An unvoiced assumption that people were historically more literate pervades the entire article. As a former lit. major I used to buy into this kind of thing. But I now think this belief is the product of profound selection…

Your ability to distill and refute the points in the article seem to be a result of deep literacy. Is this itself not the thrust of his main thesis?

Literature is beautiful and deep and fascinating. But it is also dangerous in its power to convey credibility where it may not be due. It is very easy to weave oneself into a net with reason and bind the net fast with literary pomp. How unassailable is my argument once I quote Voltaire!

Re: The Erosion of Deep Literacy

#76

Post by gniv »

tbrownaw wrote: post #7

Educational attainment has been increasing steadily since at least 1940 (as far back as the chart on Wikipedia shows): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_... I am skeptical that this "deep literacy" is in fact eroding, since it's what lets you learn a topic well enough to get a degree. It's also hard work; I'll put in the effort on topics that matter -- as in topics that usefully inform my fu…

The author addresses this deep into the article:

"A greater percentage of Americans may be deep literate in 2019 than in 1819 or 1919, but probably not than in 1949, before television, the internet, and the iPhone. We have reached a stage at which many professors dare not assign entire books or large parts of moderately challenging ones to undergraduates because they know they won't read them. And while more Americans are graduating from four-year colleges than ever before, the educational standards of many of those institutions, and the distribution of study away from the humanities and social sciences, suggest that a concomitant rise in deep literacy has gone unrealized as the degree factories churn."

Re: The Erosion of Deep Literacy

#77

Post by karaterobot »

DubiousPusher wrote: post #12

This article makes far reaching societal claims with essentially no evidence. The evidence presented is in the form of "feelings" of various writers concerned of their own decline in literaryfocus. An unvoiced assumption that people were historically more literate pervades the entire article. As a former lit. major I used to buy into this kind of thing. But I now think this belief is the product of profound selection…

You're focused on reading as a way of ingesting ideas and culture. The author focused most of his article on the process of reading, and its long term neurological and physiological effects on the reader. In other words, he's not so much saying that people don't know enough, it's that they've lost the ability to focus for long periods of time. It's an attention deficit argument, not an illiteracy argument.

(I think the article is poorly argued and doesn't support itself well; I also think it's probably observing something that is worth continued study)

Re: The Erosion of Deep Literacy

#78

Post by karaterobot »

ultramundane8 wrote: post #6

This is a really interesting piece. I've been wanting to rage against illiteracy lately but I'm not too active in public discourse (even this). That said, I don't think it's some secret key to improving humanity. I think this because literacy is ultimately a luxury, even in modernity. The literate may be able to form more nuanced opinions, but that matters less if they can't increase literacy consistently across popu…

> The literate may be able to form more nuanced opinions, but that matters less if they can't increase literacy consistently across populations.

I'm not sure I agree. It would be preferable for everyone to have the quality of deep literacy, but it still seems like a worthwhile thing to pursue even if not everybody can get there. I can see why it would matter less, but not how that fact would negate the argument itself.

The Kissinger quote about 1/3rd of the way into the article talked about how, even people responsible for making strategic decisions had (what the author of this article would call) deep literacy issues that hurt their ability to make holistic decisions. This seems like a good example of how there's value in encouraging deep literacy, even if not everybody masters it.

Re: The Erosion of Deep Literacy

#79

Post by [deleted] »

etempleton wrote: post #52

This article mourns the loss of something that only has ever existed among a very small minority of any population in recorded history. Deep Literacy, as the author defines it, relies on the luxury of time that most individuals around the world do not have. It is the great disconnect between academia and the rest of society. This article took a very large amount of my time to read in proportion and relation to the po…

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