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To play devil's advocate: why does it matter? The purpose of language is communication, so it could be argued that if people feel they're able to understand and

by ksymph 2y ago

To play devil's advocate: why does it matter? The purpose of language is communication, so it could be argued that if people feel they're able to understand and be understood sufficiently, classic ideas of literacy aren't really a useful metric. I suppose what modern language usage lacks in depth it makes up for in brevity and clarity, which seems like a natural correction to the low signal to noise ratio of a heavily interconnected world. Edit - I don't mean to challenge the value of literacy so much as speculate whether falling test scores necessarily indicate the loss of that value. Language, how it's used, and how changes spread are all very different in the information age. How do we know traditional literacy tests accurately measure the role it plays in people's lives now? As an example, written communication used to primarily take the form of writing letters. With instant communication, ability to put thoughts into words quickly has a higher relative impact on communication compared to being able to spend as much time as needed to find the perfect words to convey a message.

axus 2y ago
“Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thought-crime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten. . . . The process will still be continuing long after you and I are dead. Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller. Even now, of course, there's no reason or excuse for committing thought-crime. It's merely a question of self-discipline, reality-control. But in the end there won't be any need even for that. . . . Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?”
micromacrofoot 2y ago
the bar of being a productive member of society is much higher than "sufficient communication" (which I would argue the illiterate aren't capable of anyway)
recursive 2y ago
> they're able to understand and be understood sufficiently Communication isn't all or nothing. The more expressive power you have, the wider the scope of ideas you can communicate. It may be minimally sufficient to be able to communicate "me hungry" or "that crazy", but more is probably still better.
- robbiewxyz 2y ago
  To add to this, expressive power also makes it possible to communicate nuance and discuss biases and fallacies.
Pigalowda 2y ago
It matters because of entropy. How many people can society carry before it suddenly can’t? Civilization doesn’t persist from inertia.
robbiewxyz 2y ago
> The purpose of language is communication It isn't this simple. Literacy plays an important role in information assessment and in decision making. It's strongly associated with health, success in personal finances and career path, and relationship satisfaction, to name just a few areas that have published papers readily accessible online. To get a look at the ugly side of this, high demand religious groups are a fascinating case study. Constant circulation of repetitive cliches is a key mechanism for isolating their members and making them easier to manipulate.
PittleyDunkin 2y ago
I should have made my point clearer that I believe low literacy rates hurt your ability to articulate yourself and to understand others and even engage in basic reasoning well outside the written word, and that this is (often) detrimental to your ability to navigate the world. I certainly enjoy engaging in memes and jargon and slang too—in fact it's a great joy in life to find new words and manners of expression and to look beyond what worked yesterday—and much of this is just as expressive as formal or classically-analytical english, if not more so given the baggage words tend to acquire over time. But that's not what I was referring to at all.
- ksymph 2y ago
  I should have made my point/question clearer too; I agree that literacy is valuable for all the reasons you outline. Tests are only as useful as what they measure. The qualitative changes to communication could have impacted the quantitative changes we're seeing (i.e. lower literacy rates). How much, in what ways, I have no idea; I was hoping to learn more by sparking discussion. Unfortunately (and ironically) my poor choice of words has instead led to my apparent taking of an anti-literacy stance. Oh well.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

by ksymph 2y ago

axus 2y ago

“Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thought-crime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten. . . . The process will still be continuing long after you and I are dead. Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller. Even now, of course, there's no reason or excuse for committing thought-crime. It's merely a question of self-discipline, reality-control. But in the end there won't be any need even for that. . . . Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?”

micromacrofoot 2y ago

the bar of being a productive member of society is much higher than "sufficient communication" (which I would argue the illiterate aren't capable of anyway)

recursive 2y ago

> they're able to understand and be understood sufficiently Communication isn't all or nothing. The more expressive power you have, the wider the scope of ideas you can communicate. It may be minimally sufficient to be able to communicate "me hungry" or "that crazy", but more is probably still better.

robbiewxyz 2y ago
To add to this, expressive power also makes it possible to communicate nuance and discuss biases and fallacies.

Pigalowda 2y ago

It matters because of entropy. How many people can society carry before it suddenly can’t? Civilization doesn’t persist from inertia.

robbiewxyz 2y ago

> The purpose of language is communication It isn't this simple. Literacy plays an important role in information assessment and in decision making. It's strongly associated with health, success in personal finances and career path, and relationship satisfaction, to name just a few areas that have published papers readily accessible online. To get a look at the ugly side of this, high demand religious groups are a fascinating case study. Constant circulation of repetitive cliches is a key mechanism for isolating their members and making them easier to manipulate.

PittleyDunkin 2y ago

I should have made my point clearer that I believe low literacy rates hurt your ability to articulate yourself and to understand others and even engage in basic reasoning well outside the written word, and that this is (often) detrimental to your ability to navigate the world. I certainly enjoy engaging in memes and jargon and slang too—in fact it's a great joy in life to find new words and manners of expression and to look beyond what worked yesterday—and much of this is just as expressive as formal or classically-analytical english, if not more so given the baggage words tend to acquire over time. But that's not what I was referring to at all.

ksymph 2y ago
I should have made my point/question clearer too; I agree that literacy is valuable for all the reasons you outline. Tests are only as useful as what they measure. The qualitative changes to communication could have impacted the quantitative changes we're seeing (i.e. lower literacy rates). How much, in what ways, I have no idea; I was hoping to learn more by sparking discussion. Unfortunately (and ironically) my poor choice of words has instead led to my apparent taking of an anti-literacy stance. Oh well.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]