Friday, December 12, 2008
Superfluous (Chapter 3)
The art of aristocrats, the art of enriching life.
- Mary M. Colum
From the book:
Another reason why good literature was more readily accessible [in Nock’s youth] than now is that the proportion of literacy in our population was much lower, and publishers were not under such heavy economic pressure to block up the access to good literature with trash. In Massachusetts, where literacy would be presumably highest, there were nearly a hundred thousand persons unable to read or write. Things were no better in Connecticut, where one-tenth of the child-population got no schooling at all; and it would be fair to suppose that in the more newly-settled regions of the country the level of literacy would be very considerably lower. One might assume that as the level of literacy rose, the level of general intelligence would rise with it, and consequently that the economic demand for good literature would also rise. This, roughly, was Mr. Jefferson’s idea, and indeed it has always been at the root of our system of free public instruction for everyone. It has, however, somehow failed to work out according to expectation. The level of literacy has been pushed up very nearly to the practicable limit, but the level of general intelligence seems not to have risen appreciably, and the economic demand for good literature is apparently no greater in relation to a population of a hundred and thirty million than it was to one that was going on sixty million; in fact, one would say it is much less. The reason for this is plain enough; there is nothing recondite about it. In his view of literacy, Mr. Jefferson, was only half right. He was obviously right in premising that no illiterate person can read; but he was guilty of a thundering non distributio medii in his tacit conclusion that any literate person can read. On the contrary, as I discovered as long ago as my undergraduate days, very few literate persons are able to read, very few indeed. This can be proven by observation and experiment of the simplest kind. I do not mean that the great majority are unable to read intelligently; I mean that they are unable to read at all – unable, that is, to carry away from a piece of printed matter anything like a correct idea of its content. They are more or less adept at passing printed matter through their minds, after a fashion, especially such matter as is addressed to mere sensation, (and knowledge of this fact is nine-tenths of a propagandist’s equipment), but this is not reading. Reading implies the use of the reflective faculty, and very few have that faculty developed much beyond the anthropoid stage, let alone processing it at a stage of development which makes reading practicable.
This is a long excerpt, but I feel it is important to quote to whole thing to get a good grasp of what Nock is saying. There are quite a few times in Nock’s writings where he uses a very familiar word in a rather unconventional way. In this case, “reading” and “literacy” are words that he uses in his own way, and then makes his definition more explicit later on.
Universal literacy has been held up as a baseline goal for a civilized society for a couple hundred years. We’ve pretty much reached that goal now, with the exception of a few people that fall through the cracks, and a few other people that are physically or mentally handicapped.
Nock is the first person I’ve ever seen to stop and ask – why is universal literacy assumed to be a good thing, and do the experimental results bear out the presuppositions?
The simple act of asking this question proves that Nock is approaching the issue from an entirely different point of view than what we do today. Even though many of us reject progressive political theory, we are unaware exactly how much progressive sociological thought we have absorbed and take for granted. In my case, at least, this is one of those situations.
Progressive sociological thought puts forth the notion that all men are improvable, and that society, through public or private educational systems, should have a hand in improving them. Being literate is a prerequisite to having the ability to learn other things and to be educated, so universal literacy should be a primary goal of any society.
Nock’s contention is that the ability to read has no bearing whatsoever on the ability to think, and that without the ability to think, the ability to read is at best pointless and at worst detrimental to individuals. Also implicit in his statements is that the ability to think is not something of which all men are capable. Expecting everyone to be improvable to the point of being truly literate, sentient beings is folly.
This idea was initially hard for me to accept, given that I know quite a few literate, intelligent people. However, with time I began to realize that Nock is holding people to a higher standard. Being “smart” today means one has gone to school, one has a degree in some impressive field or another, etc. I think about all of the people I know that get classified as “smart”, and start to look at them from Nock’s perspective. How many have an interest in thinking, as opposed to simply memorizing things and applying algorithms? This I think is commonly substituted for intelligence today. One person’s knowledge base of field-specific trivia is larger than another’s, so that person is defined to be “smarter”. The ability to critically analyze that information and draw true, useful conclusions from it is largely ignored. By Nock’s criteria, I know very few literate, intelligent people. I also come away from this exercise fully agreeing with him that the majority of people are incapable of or uninterested in this sort of thought.
Nock’s examples of the downsides of universal literacy are the increasing rarity of good literature as publishing houses begin to cater to the tastes of the masses, increased advertisements everywhere as companies begin to use a new form of communication to influence the weak-minded, and an increased danger from propagandists who see a similar opportunity to that of advertisers.
I did a quick check to see how far this trend as come. City Journal has a circulation of about 10,000 issues, quarterly. National Review’s circulation is about 150,000 issues, bi-weekly. Cosmopolitan has a circulation of about 3,000,000 issues, monthly. Maxim has a circulation of about 2,500,000 issues, monthly. That’s right, two percent of the entire population of the country reads either Cosmo or Maxim every month. City Journal readers are barely a blip on the radar.
This is what universal literacy has brought us. Billboards along highways, an audience for the Huffington Post, and “What men think about SEX” in grocery store checkout lanes so you can get the birds and the bees conversation with your kids out of the way early. Universal literacy has its economic upsides - certainly our economy wouldn’t be where it is today without the ability of the average Joe to read and follow basic instructions. Culturally, universal literacy has increased the speed at which we race to the lowest cultural denominator.
As usual, Nock does not make any recommendations or prescribe any remedies. He just points out facts. The rest is left as an exercise to the reader.
