Mar 6

In All Fairness, I Assume Most of Us are Barely Literate, Not Completely Illiterate

WSJ.com takes me to task for calling us all a bunch of illiterate fools.

In my defense, being illiterate isn’t all that bad; I’m spared the ridiculousness of the word “blogress,” which succeeds in being both patronizing and stupid at the same time.

But, hey, Rachel, I think if the Wall Street Journal calls us a “blogress,” we can put it on our resumes. I know I’m adding it to my about page as soon as I’m done with this post.

Edited to add: I know some of you will be so excited by this that you may want to make out with me, just to get some Journal cooties on you.  That’s fine.  Just drop me an email.

25 thoughts on “In All Fairness, I Assume Most of Us are Barely Literate, Not Completely Illiterate”

  6. Lynn not hip to the making out offer.STOP. I’m agog with awe.STOP.Consider this comment a symbolic virtual gesture of osculation.STOP.I’m privleged to be in the minority who is somewhat literate.I’m STOPPING…whooohooo!

  7. Sweet. The WSJ thinks I’m literate. That’s more than my fellow college students years ago assumed when they first found out I was from the Volunteer State. Also, I’m fairly certain that the blogresses should have blogress costumes. ;)

  9. A blogress? Perhaps they meant to refer to you as an ogress. You know how the auto-spell-check can trip you up sometimes…

  11. A Blogress?
    Kee-rist.
    I mean it.
    I call you a goddess, but that’s just me.
    Come and have adult beverages with us as we are in Nashville (actually ‘boro) this weekend.
    We will toast your WSJ goodness.

  13. Blogress…is that any relation to “Blograss?”

    I was interviewed recently by the WSJ and come to think of it, I got the feeling they thought I was retarded or at the very least, a little slow.

  16. Aunt B., if I may be so bold, I say “Fuck the OpinionJournal.” Allow me to explain.

    First, there’s literacy, and then there’s literacy. Having the fundamental skills of reading– knowing how to decipher the images– is one definition of ‘literacy.’ However, as Toni Morrison might say, that isn’t reading. The ability to understand and appreciate ideas and notions (however complex) as they have been constructed with words is reading.

    Likewise, being able to scribble (or type) characters onto a page in the form of words isn’t necessarily writing. The ability to comprehensively convey ideas with those words (in structures of various complexity) is writing.

    By those definitions, Aunt B., I think you may have been kind with your estimate. Furthermore, I’d reckon that the sort of illiteracy I’m describing is not confined to the Volunteer State.

    I’m cursing the WSJ Opinion Journal because of their contribution to this functional illiteracy. The cretins at the WSJ-OJ, along with their pack-mates at other corporate media outlets, strike me as the sort of yacking jackals who are processed by right-wing propaganda mills like the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute. These are the outfits– bankrolled by our own über-wealthy fascists and neofeudalists– that have poisoned the well of our public discourse with a steady flow of reactionary rhetorical filth. In the meantime, they (and their spiritual brethren in government) have led the charge in the scuttling of our national commons– which includes public education.

    So it’s no wonder that many people might have a bit of difficulty or trepidation when it comes to constructing letters to their representatives. Even if we have the ability and confidence to write a brilliant expression of our views, how can we be sure that our representatives will be willing– or even able– to respond in kind?

    In any case, Aunt B., let’s look at how the OpinionJournal characterizes your defense of Rachel. They quote you fairly, and it all looks good until they decide to lay on the smear.

    Aunt B. is quick to note that “I’m not trying to insinuate that Rachel is not very literate.” We’d actually go beyond this and say Rachel clearly is literate, although Aunt B. is a bit confused. After all, if you can’t read, how can you avail yourself of a form letter?

    That shit doesn’t even make sense. First of all, you didn’t say that Rachel “can’t read.” You didn’t say that people who use form letters “can’t read.” By clearly delineating a scale of variation in Volunteer State literacy (“illiterate or barely literate”), you left open the implication that those who use form letters can read, but might not be very adept or confident at writing. As I illustrated above, writing is a part of literacy.

    So no, Aunt. B, you aren’t confused. Though you were only voicing an opinion, there was nothing illogical or even apparently specious about your construction. The OpinionJournal is the culprit here; in their eagerness to paint you as a fuzzy-brained liberal, they spat out a bit of vile, spurious rhetorical effluvium disguised as a ‘joke.’ Fuck them and the wingnut welfare they rode in on.

  18. Pingback: Nashville is Talking » Quote of the Day

  20. Thank you, Rachel. You’re very kind. I’m currently taking a course at DePaul University about the founding of the U.S. My teacher, an experienced trial lawyer, is a brilliant and cultured man. Over the course of this quarter he has shared with his students the unfortunate realization that politics in our republic ain’t what they used to be.

    For all of their tragic flaws, the early leaders of our nation (from the founding through Lincoln) were thinkers. Most of these men gave great weight to what they were going to say and do. Hell, they even used to write their own speeches! Seriously, Rachel, if you have taken the time to read some of the speeches, essays, and other correspondences from these political figures, then I’m sure you have seen an erudite profundity that is lost to our contemporary Cro-Magnon sound bite culture. Whether or not you agree with what they’re saying, you have to be impressed with the time and energy they invested in saying it.

    Now, though, you can’t find a Supreme Court Justice with the wisdom and historical awareness of John Marshall, nor can you find a president with the homespun eloquence and political genius of Abraham Lincoln. Our political discourse has been dragged into a dark alley and beaten silly by a Satanic cult-gang that includes, but is not limited to, the following: the corporate community, with its cartoonishly amoral focus on servicing the bottom line at any cost; the ever-consolidating corporate media, for whom there is no distinction between a citizen and a conspicuous consumer; the previously discussed wingnut welfare jackals; and an increasingly rarefied political aristocracy that (Montesquieu be damned) has eschewed its connection with and responsibility to the electorate in favor of servicing its wealthy and powerful pimps.

    That’s why I get a little peeved when I see the jackals taking potshots at thinkers like you and Aunt B., Rachel. You take the time to think about your positions; you do the painstaking work of backing them up with facts; and you write it all down with concise eloquence (on a blog!). Aunt B.’s blog obviously involves far fewer technical concerns, but she brings the same flavor of intellectuality and sincerity to her writing whenever it is called for. In short, you ladies and your blogs represent what our political discourse should resemble, but here you are the targets of juvenile rhetorical poop-flingers with a conspicuous corporate presence. With an eye on our ancestral political betters for perspective, this doesn’t bode well for the future of our republic.

  21. Church Secretary, you are quite correct when you state, “I’m sure you have seen an erudite profundity that is lost to our contemporary Cro-Magnon sound bite culture.”

    I would cite two important reasons for this change.

    1) Back then politicians, for the most part, could afford to talk over the heads of most people. Why? America was much less “democratic”- whether for better or worse. For a while only property holders could vote, and even then they only voted (democratically) for the House members. Senators were elected by their state legislators- often some of the richest (and smartest) men in the state. The change in how we elect the Senators (I believe) remedied one evil, but created a new one- one less check on the tyrannical (and often uninformed) majority.

    2) The sheer power of the federal government creates a much greater demand for factions and interest groups. When Washington and Jefferson, or even Lincoln, wrote their speeches, the average Americans life involved far less federal invention and supervision.

    Now I won’t even mention that most of these men never attended public schools…lol. Lincoln was self educated and many others had tutors or attended private schools that focused on a curriculum based on the classics.

    -J. Kaiser

  22. You make some good points, J. Kaiser, but allow me to add a bit. I disagree with your contention that politicians of the early U.S. were ‘talking over the heads’ of most people. Literacy was fairly high in colonial America and in the fledgling republic. While some of the loftier, more esoteric prose might have escaped most people, you have to remember that there was no television or radio. People read and wrote a lot.

    Your point about the franchise is well taken, but I would submit that in the early days political activism and involvement were not limited to voting (nor are they now, for that matter). There was always the possibility that if the electorate and the elected acted to the sufficient detriment of the non-voting rabble, there could have been another revolution just the same.

    There have always been factions in this republic; that is nothing new, and it is not a consequence of a stronger national government. If anything, the increasing overreach of the national government might eventually lead to more local cooperation and assertion of state sovereignty. It has already begun to happen, if only symbolically; witness the various state rejections of the National ID card, and the various municipal gov’t stands against the Bush administration’s foreign policy. The administration’s disastrous feudal economic policies have helped to shove many states into dire financial straits, and the abuses against military personnel nationwide are not earning many friends (and doubtless losing a few) among the people who are actually paying the price for the Bushies’ imperialist cockups.

    I think the factionalism isn’t entirely organic, either. The right wing, over the past fifty years or so, has perfected the art of divisive gutter politics. Race-baiting, xenophobia, gay-bashing, and hypocritical (and dogmatic) public piety have been enough to encourage millions of people away from focusing on the fact that the right wing has been scuttling their bread-and-butter interests. The disastrous choices of the Democrats (moving to the right to try triangulate around conservative fiscal policy) have left most people in the apparent Catch-22 of the two-party system. Factor in the rampant growth of nihilistic consumerism (fed by the aforementioned corporate media), and we have an electorate which could go either way: toward capitulation to an authoritarian Orwellian nightmare state, or toward a modest but effective box office revolt and a second New Deal. People will either grow tired of buying into the right-wing con game, or they will sell themselves to it wholesale.

    I’m a bit pessimistic at this point, because I think we’ve degenerated, for the most part, into an electorate of easy virtue. Though poverty is spreading, and the gap between rich and poor widening, the imperial plunder (or at least the heavily marketed promise of it) still seems sufficient to keep enough people self-medicated and politically docile. But enough of my ramblings…

  23. Not to take up too much of this comment board, but I would have to disagree on several points.

    “I disagree with your contention that politicians of the early U.S. were ‘talking over the heads’ of most people. Literacy was fairly high in colonial America and in the fledgling republic.”

    There is a large difference between functional literacy and the kind of literacy required to read a letter or speech by Jefferson or Lincoln and understand its main points. Furthermore, “Treating” allowed many politicians to avoid the kind of “erudite profundity” we see in their speeches (whether on the Senate floor, at their inauguration, etc.) in exchange for simply buying votes with liquor. One could argue (especially in the South) that elections often depended more on who treated the most voters than who was more qualified. Of course this would be a problematic statement since most men who ran for office, in the South particularly, were of similar class and respectability. I believe Morgan touches on this subject in his book, _American Slavery, American Freedom_.

    “There have always been factions in this republic; that is nothing new, and it is not a consequence of a stronger national government. If anything, the increasing overreach of the national government might eventually lead to more local cooperation and assertion of state sovereignty.”

    I would question how a government with much greater power would not, as a consequence, create greater incentive for interest groups to plead their respective claims? The increased assertions of state sovereignty result from the states’ respective loss of power to the federal government. However, this only supports my argument, since it creates yet another faction (among many) lobbying the federal government for legislation in its favor. States collaborating to fight against even further impositions on their ever shrinking rights and responsibilities does not eliminate the numerous factions (AARP, NRA, et al.) that would have had little reason to exist in 1800, 1810, 1820, 1830, etc. America is certainly more factious now than in 1810. Without the feds greatly expanded powers there would be little incentive for the lobbyists that currently sully capital hill to continue their residence and labors.

    “The administration’s disastrous feudal economic policies have helped to shove many states into dire financial straits”

    I would like to know which policies you are referencing? Free trade?

    “The right wing, over the past fifty years or so, has perfected the art of divisive gutter politics.”

    Of course the left wing is innocent of such when it promotes the politics of “class warfare”- whether relating to relative wealth, gender or racial issues?

    “Though poverty is spreading, and the gap between rich and poor widening, the imperial plunder (or at least the heavily marketed promise of it) still seems sufficient to keep enough people self-medicated and politically docile. But enough of my ramblings…”

    I would agree to a point. Both Republicans and Democrats have sufficiently bought off their bases with enough entitlement spending to choke a blue whale. Too many people have a vested interest in their federal jobs or their government checks. However, not all of us are politically docile. I have long labored for major changes in the federal government- from drastic cuts in federal power and spending, to changes in the electoral system that would allow third parties greater chances of success on election day.

    Although I doubt our politics would line up (my stomach turns at the thought of supporting a “second New Deal”) I can respect your position. Something must change soon, the republic can not endure in its current state for much longer.

    However, I am curious how you think a “second new deal” is any better than a “authoritarian Orwellian nightmare state.” I would think that in its next incarnation the new deal could easily be both authoritarian and a nightmare.

  24. Hmm. I agree with the sentiment, Church Secretary, but I do think it’s important to remember that literacy was high within the citizen population. Literacy (of the sort that would be useful in this discussion – English, etc.) in marginalized non-citizen groups was dismal.

    That’s rather beside the point, of course; the politicians weren’t talking to those people, so bringing them into a question largely reliant on the nature of the link between politicians and constituents is sort of tangential, at least on the surface.

    I do think it comes in when cross-time comparisons are made, however. Having a more broad notion of citizenry, especially considering how we got large chunks of that citizenry (refugees and conquest and slavery, oh my!), leaves us with a much broader range of potential audience. Even leaving TV and radio out of it, the assertion that ‘we used to read and write a lot and now that’s declined’ is problematic when one extends one’s scope. And there’s certainly more to our current state of relatively low literacy than TV/radio/the internet.

    I think another part of what’s being missed in the argument about form letters (and probably the most direct, if not necessarily the most important or interesting) is the sheer growth of the country. The number of people writing in for any given issue, at any given time, is large enough that it would monopolize a politician’s time just to read them all. Thus the rise in political beuracracy (not paperwork, but people; everyone needs aides and secretaries just to get them through the day), and the rise of the form letter. Even if the overall percentage of people writing in has dropped dramatically, we still have a bloody large population.

    A well-organized politician ought have a well-trained staff; ideally involving people who can craft relatively unique letters that are both readable and on-message. Unfortunately, good aides are hard to find (not least because people who can really think are likely to want to do more direct work, or at least have better salaries… but also because a really good aide not only has the skillset to do the job well, but a passion to do it and a really really good mesh, psychologically, with the person they’re working for. Finding someone that can get inside your head and do what you would do if only you had time to do it is hard). In the absence of those good aides, a well-written form letter is the next best option.

    Obviously, there are flaws in this plan; the letters ought not only be well-written and on-message, but appropriate to the general tenor of the originating inquiry. That seems to be the area with the most trouble, honestly.

    Heh. I realize that this wound up segueing into the topic for the other thread. I’m sorry for that. I mostly wanted to say that politicians can have rational reasons for resorting to form letters without taking into account the literacy (or lack thereof) of the people with whom they are corresponding.

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