Mass illiteracy

“Wikipedia - where you can be an authority even though you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about” — S. Colbert discussing the concept that crowd sourced information has become the primary reference point for the functionally illiterate.

1. Introduction

I would argue that we live in a world of virulently expanding anti-intellectualism. There are a number of causes for this, which I briefly touch on below. However I feel that the primary cause is an educational system designed to root out any love of learning and true scholarship. This is perhaps particularly so for some of the wealthiest nations. For the system tends to produce graduates who, newly minted certificate in hand, are none the less functionally illiterate. There is much in the academic literature on the subject, particularly in the discipline known as “hidden curriculum studies”, which substantiate this claim [115, 116, 117].

But I am getting ahead of myself, so perhaps a very brief look at how this system developed in the first place may be useful:

2. Early background

“ [Traditional education is...] a power to exert symbolic violence which manifests itself in the form of a right to impose legitimately, reinforces the arbitrary power which establishes it and which conceals it.” — Pierre Bourdieu [110]

Edward Bernays was one of the early participants in the design of the North American educational system [1] [M] [M] He was also one of the world’s first mass marketing experts [2,3,5]. And an enthusiastic adviser of Adolf Hitler in formulating Hitler’s propaganda machine [4,2,17].. It was his feeling that a primary goal of authority was to maintain ignorance in the general population. For an ignorant citizenry was a gullible, and therefore easily manipulable target.

He advised his clients to gage the success of any given message by testing of random groups to see if they were aware that they were being manipulated [5,6]. Many decades later, similar testing in the general area of hidden curriculum studies have shown the same thing that Bernays found - targets of manipulation seldom if ever recognize that they are being acculturated to a purposefully designed message [62,63,3,65]. There is a neurological basis for this (which I discuss here, albeit briefly) of which modern neuromarketers, public relations people, the Tavistock Institute, and others have made good use.

But back to the early days of Bernays. Lacking fMRIs, they could only focus upon macro scale manipulation through four primary means - the educational system, religion, politics, and nationalism [5,4]. He and his colleagues were early pioneers in developing the tools of repetition, redirection, half-truths, and most of all simplified black-white narratives with no shades of gray [N] [N] Nicely elucidated by Ellul’s classic studies in propaganda [7]. These tools were carefully designed to be funnelled through these four systems.

But most of all, Bernays was interested in the pioneering research in early childhood psychology (he was a close relative of Freud, after all [3]). It was this that he and those who followed, found most useful in applying to subjects early on in life. They sought to use the findings from this research to "instil correct behaviour, a love of country, and a feeling of duty [8]" in the young. Through the educational system they and their followers were designing.

3. Mandatory acculturation

“All pedagogic action is, objectively, symbolic violence insofar as it is the imposition of a cultural arbitrary by an arbitrary power.” — Pierre Bourdieu [111]

Fast foreword a few decades: A host of Bernays’ followers, notably Durkheim, Parsons, Dewey, Rugg, Rudin made a radical suggestion [9,10,11,12,13,14,15]. They conducted research which "proved" that education must be compulsory. And moreover that it should be constructed in a particular manner. To make a long story short (and perhaps to too grossly simplify), the end result was a carefully designed system largely following the strictures of the Chicago school on the one-hand [11,13], and the "feel good" curriculum of Maslow on the other [15,13,10].

The new curriculum mandated compulsory attendance of all youth from childhood onward to adulthood. In this new system, (largely on Durkheim and his followers’ insistence) it was impossible to advance ... unless the child became progressively more fully acculturated to the dominant narrative. Outliers were not tolerated, and could not advance. With advancement in the new system, there was no accreditation. And without accreditation, little chance of successful employment and a successful life.

4. Mass illiteracy

“Our number one enemy is ignorance” — Julian Assange [112]

The result of this carefully constructed and perpetuated pedagogical system of course has been a citizenry acculturated to their own appalling ignorance.. Ignorance? Yes. Whether we speak of "computer literacy", "book literacy", "political literacy", or others, the graduates of the system are illiterate in any meaningful sense of the term. There are some good studies showing that at least 42,000,000 U.S. citizens, citizens of the world’s wealthiest country mind you, who cannot read, or write, or use a computer in any but the most trivial way. Nor can they operate the GPS in their cars, perform the most elementary mathematics needed to count change in a store, or perform the tasks which most would consider second nature in a truly literate society [16,18,19,51]. Another 50,000,000 cannot read past the 4th grade level [18]. One third of the entire adult population is functionally illiterate - most are unable to read well enough to fill in job application [118]. 30,000,000 are unable to read a simple sentence [ibid]. 33% and 42% of high school graduates never again in their lives read a book. 80% of all U.S. families never purchase or read a book [ibid]. Numbers for Canada are almost identical [119].

And these numbers - again, in the world’s wealthiest nation - are rising [19]. Rapidly:

"... the number of functionally illiterate adults [in the United States] is increasing by approximately two and one quarter million persons each year.” [17]

United States citizens spend significantly more on potato chips than the government devotes to energy R&D [20]. The number of foreign students studying the physical sciences and engineering in United States graduate schools easily surpasses the number of United States students [21]. China is now second in the world in its publication of biomedical research articles [22], having recently surpassed Japan, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, France, Canada and Spain.

5. A very short historical perspective

"Remember: the origin of corporatism in the second half of the nineteenth century lay in two things - the rejection of citizen-based democracy and the desire to react in a stable way to the Industrial Revolution. These original motives would evolve into the desire for a stable managerial, hierarchical society." — J. Saul, [110]

This mass illiteracy did not happen by accident. I have listed below a very, very brief summary of some of the steps involved leading up to the current system North American education. This system is important because it has been, in one form or another, exported to much of the industrialized world and to most of the countries which have lost wars to the U.S. (see the list on my page about war, here):

1862 Land grant legislation gives endowments to US states which create technical universities. These harboured the beginning of the technical class needed by industry [72]

1880-1890 Graduate schools begun in the US. Ph.D. offered. German model imported via Rockefeller [73], initially through Columbia [ibid] and Harvard [74] with others soon following [75], shifting from classical British model toward the accreditation model [ibid, 76].

1895 Dewey served as head of the combined departments of philosophy, psychology and pedagogy [77]. Funding was directly from Rockefeller [ibid]. Post-baccalaureate research in Education methodologies began in earnest [78].

1886 U.S. corporations became legally equivalent to individual persons [79,80,81,82]. Canadian corporations followed shortly thereafter [83]. Corporations were now free to contribute to political parties, with resulting gains in influence over government [84,85,86] which continued unabated into our own time [87]. This model has since been adopted by several other countries [83, 88].

1896-1920 Many university chairs, university researchers, and school administrators funded primarily by a small group of industrialists [84,89]. The amount spent was substantial. First tier Universities became differentiated from other tiers, with the former being primarily the purview of the wealthy [90].

1905 The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (CFAT) was founded. This institution attempted to define, and to an extent dictate, what constituted effective and valid teaching technique [91].

1912 Factory model schooling became commonplace, following Taylor’s influential speech to congress [92,93].

1913 Rockefeller foundation funds Durkheim, consensus theorists, and others [71. Frederick Gates, then director of the Rockefeller foundation: "In our dream, we have limitless resources, and the people yield themselves with perfect docility to our moulding hand. The present educational conventions fade from our minds; and, unhampered by tradition, we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or science. . ." [ibid]

1914 First world war begun. Post-secondary education in engineering was well funded with a view to producing weapons, at the cost to humanities and more abstract disciplines [94].

1921 Psychology as a tool in education funded by Carnegie Foundation [95]. Cattell, as president, wrote, "Whatever else people have thought over the years that the various Carnegie organizations were contributing to education, their mission, as stated, has been "to promote the extension of applied psychology." [96]

1933-1941 Columbia Teachers college spreads Rugg’s writings regarding moulding of public opinion (social engineering) to other teachers colleges and legions of new teachers [97,98,99].

1941 Second world war begun. Post-secondary education in engineering was well funded at the cost to humanities in order to create weapons [100]. Military colleges in Canada and the United States became strongly affiliated with several major universities [ibid, 101]. Military funding began to dictate what was studied in the hard and applied science [102].

1946 A testing service [103] was founded by the Carnegie Foundation. This private corporation controlled, and created, the majority of standard entrance examinations for colleges and Universities in North America [104] despite considerable research negating its utility as predictor [105, 106]

1945 The Tavistock Institute for Human Relations was formed. Like the Eugenics groups in Germany [107], it was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation [ibid]. The Tavistock Institute later partnered with Kurt Lewin’s Research Centre for Group Dynamics at the University of Michigan [108]. Their work allegedly greatly influenced educational and other social settings [109] throughout North America and by extension, the world. More information may be had from the cited references.

1952 The rise of corporate universities and the corporatization of public universities begins in earnest (see here for some examples).

Perhaps you can read between the lines here?

6. Legislated Illiteracy

"The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to down dissent and originality. That is its aim ..., whatever pretensions of politicians, pedagogues other such mountebanks, and that is its aim everywhere else." — H.L. Mencken, writing in 1924 [68]

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development recently reported that the United States ranked 25^th in the world in terms of the mathematical ability of young teenagers. Luxembourg - a country smaller than many U.S. cities, ranks better, at 24^th. Seeing this terrible state of mathematical illiteracy, the United States Congress sprang into action, debating Bill HR 205, The Geometric Simplification Act. Sponsored by the representative from the U.S. state of Alabama M. Roby, the Act sought to alter the Euclidean constant pi (3.14159...) to be henceforward precisely equal to 3.

In this pavis against rationality, Ms. Roby argued that:

“3 is a lot better. I guarantee you American scores will go up once pi is 3. It will be so much easier" [62], joining other legislators in the march backwards toward the dark ages. Precisely as Jacobs’ research [70] had so eloquently predicted.

More subtle, but just as worrying is what grant applicants face in the United States:

“Advanced postdocs or new assistant professors who belong to under-represented minorities [may apply for special grants from the] Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology. Each winner receives $3000 in unrestricted career development funds plus $2500 in travel funds” [65].

Hopefully it is clear that this is identical to the previous example regarding the value of pi, albeit not quite as intellectually bereft.

Or consider the U.S. state of Texas, where the wise legislators have made it a crime for an academic to criticise the teaching of Christian creationism at universities. Other states in that country have similar legislation, attempting by law to change reality. They sought to place the teaching of this rather bizarre myth on the same level as scientific fact, even going so far as to legislate that teaching that evolution is a theory . It is not a theory, of course, any more that it is a theory that a tree springs from seeds. Many people are of the opinion that students learning in these states are learning to be scientifically illiterate.

There are many, many other examples available. Legislated illiteracy has been carried to the point of destroying real science (as opposed to junk science, incompetent, or pseudo science and power), as well as eliminating knowledge of history, social movements, or the ability to question and explore everything.

“In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.” - Samuel Langhorne Clemens [107]

7. Illiteracy surveys

The list below is a much shortened version of surveys conducted amongst adults in the United States who where at least 18 years of age. All of the respondents had experienced compulsory schooling from early childhood into adulthood. Results are collapsed across various polls conducted by CNN [23], the Gallup organization [24,25,26,27], the Washington post [28,29], Time Magazine [30,31,32], Harris Polls [33,34], Knight Ridder Newspapers [35,36,37,38], National Geographic Surveys [39, 40,41], the New York Times [42], National Educational Association [43,44,45,46], RtoR. Foundation [47], and several others [48,49,50,51] most notably the United Nations regular literacy reviews’ raw data [52].

That anyone who has been through an educational system could lack such basic knowledge as indicated below, shows not only the utter failure of the pedagogical system in that country, but also its wild success in producing a citizenry acculturated to a profound ignorance of themselves, their country, the world, science, and just perhaps, the true activities of government:

98% could not name in order, the nine innermost planets (most could not name more than three planets, most did not know there were extra-solar planets)
98% could not properly define democracy or recognize the term "plutocracy" or "oligarchy" or understand the difference when it was explained
96% believed their 2-party system of government was a democracy [O] [O] Sometimes called Morton’s Fork, this is form of logical fallacy - the fallacy of exhaustive hypotheses. In other words, voters are presented with a choice between non-mutually exclusive but equally unpleasant options, with no acknowledgement of the fact that other more viable options exist. A war-monger’s phrase “If you are not with us, you are against us” is a more general example of the fallacy of exhaustive hypothesis. See here for more.
92% believed that Japan surrendered after the US dropped atomic bombs on them, rather than before
91% believed their country was currently under organized attack
87% believed the ludicrous assumption that the right to bear arms prevented crime (rather it has been shown toincrease the rate of crime)
87% did not know what an engineering graduate does (most thought they drove trains)
87% believed "terrorism" was the primary danger they faced on a daily basis despite readily available statistical proof to the contrary. Virtually none could accurately describe the term.
86% believed it was highly probable they would be physically harmed by a stranger (the actual probability is less than 0.01, and has been falling for decades!)
83% of those aged 18-25 could not find Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, or Vietnam on a map.
80% believed the Christian Bible to be a holy book. 76% believed it to be the literal the word of the Christian god or to have been inspired by the word of a Christian god
74% believed violent crime in the US had been steadily increasing (as you may know, it has radically dropped in the past several decades)
69% of U.S. public school students in grades 5-8 learn mathematics from teachers without any certificate or degree in mathematics.
65% could not describe the basic facts about Watergate or the corrupt system of government it so clearly elucidated
65% believe radioactive milk can be made safe by boiling it
61% believe sea salt to be a low-sodium alternative to table salt
61% of those surveyed said that torture was justified (but, one might posit, not against themselves or their family)
57% believe that humans and dinosaurs roamed the earth at the same time (closer to 80% in Kansas, Arkansas, Tennessee, and rapidly climbing in Texas, Alabama, etc.)
55% believe antibiotics kill viruses and bacteria
50% believe lasers work by focusing sound waves
35% believe the sun revolves around the earth [69]

8. Search Engines

In the time since several search engines began offering users the ability to filter and annotate search results by reading level, the majority of English-speaking searches in North America have been made at a grade school level or below [53]. At time of writing, the majority of U.S. sites rank at the same level. This in a country which boasts high literacy levels.

To be a bit more formal about this, there are several studies indicating that more than 50% of post-secondary students in both public and private four-year US colleges, and more than 75% at two-year colleges lack basic quantitative literacy skills [54,55]. That is to say, they were unable to understand news editorials, compare credit card interest fee offers, read simple graphs, or understand basic survey results.

The conclusion is unavoidable: The majority student population across the United States during the decades in which these studies occurred, was (and is) functionally illiterate. And yet they were still more literate than the population at large. An appalling finding.

"The illiteracy level of our children are appalling" – G.W. Bush II, U.S. President [114]

9. Illiterate rulers

"The Minister of Science is a creationist who thinks the Flintstones is a documentary" — Gilles Duceppe [77], discussing the scientific qualifications of a then Federal Minister of Science in Canada. Mr. Duceppe’s comments may be appropriate for the leaders of many nations, corporations, and military. an image - please see terms of use

I give a number of examples of the appalling depths of illiteracy amongst those in power, such as the appalling lack of scientific understanding amongst the most senior decision makers in government, which you can read if you are interested. Literacy and love of learning are not highly valued by most of those in power, by so-called celebrities, media, sports or those in the public eye. Money, power, social success... those are held up as important. Learning and scholarship, if mentioned at all, are looked down upon as useless, nerdy, out of touch with real life, and so on.

10. Diminished Intelligence

Further, in direct contradiction to the well known (but IMHO completely unsubstantiated) Flynn Effect regarding IQ, there is clear longitudinal evidence for diminution of IQ-measured intelligence in pre-college level students. Cognitive intelligence test results over a 30 year period show progressively lower scores regardless of gender, SES, school, and other similar variables [56,60]. And yet as one would expect of a population with generally declining intelligence and literacy, most people in that country believe the opposite to be the case. This is the well known Dunning-Kruger effect which although clearly problematic in a number of specific ways, certainly appears to be true in general.

That is to say, non-literate or non-intellectually gifted believe themselves to be the opposite. Perhaps in no small part due to the feel-good curricula of Maslow and his ilk.

Of course literacy extends beyond reading. Job literacy for example, is a term used to describe the ability of a student to function and contribute in the workplace. In this regard, approximately 70% of high school graduates in the United States are considered by a host of industries from the manufacturing to tourism sectors to be job illiterate [57]. That is, 70% of these graduates would not be hired or would be fired shortly after attaining work.

11. Breadth and Depth at Universities:

"Literacy" may also be interpreted as an indicator of breadth and depth of knowledge. Using this definition, literacy even at first tier post-secondary institutions is appallingly low.

Literature: Of seventy major US universities, less than two dozen require English majors to study Shakespeare. Or Chaucer [58, 61]. In fact few if any of those of similar genius are even known to graduates, who receive on the whole no exposure to classics of English literature or learning. The emphasis instead is almost entirely upon American authors, and of those primarily the popularises of U.S.-centric viewpoints [58,60]. Rather than deep investigation of human condition common to great literature, students are primarily exposed to its antithesis.
Science: Studies looking at scientific knowledge show an ever worsening grasp of basic factual information [59]. Rather than pursue excellence, universities have responded by offering the highest level of grade inflation anywhere on the planet. So high in fact, that (should one be able to afford the ludicrously high tuition, etc. fees), it is virtually impossible to fail at many of the formerly most prestigious U.S. universities.
History: Knowledge of world history amongst non-history majors was so low as to be essentially non-existent [115].

“... unfortunately the [leaders are] as ignorant of history and geography as they believe the public to be.” — Gore Vidal [113]

In the last few decades many of the world’s universities, particularly in North America, have been under assault. U.S. President Eisenhower famously warned just before his death, of what he termed the military-industrial complex. But what he most feared, was its grip upon higher education. For he understood that honest intellectual inquiry would fall by the wayside in academia should learning become organized around the rigid structures designed to produce militarized services, weapons, surveillance, and the other trappings of an economy based upon war and upon profit for the very few who benefited therefrom. Reality, facts, reason, is abandoned according to the dictates of a preordained and preapproved ontology. The details are so well known and so readily available for those who bother to look, that I will not say more on this. Other than to point out that few universities and few educational systems transmit or offer the transcendent values of individual conscience, deep learning, and joy of reaching beyond oneself into the hearth of knowledge. The polyglot is dead, the narrow morality limited ignorance of the militarized, corporatized, orthodox researcher.

“Men die, but the plutocracy is immortal: and it is necessary that fresh generations should be trained to its service” — Sinclair Lewis [118]

12. The illiterate’s view of the literate

A scholar and intellectual is one who ponders, theorized about, wonders, examines, questions, well... everything. She is the gentle custodian of reason, justice, truth, and knowledge. Yet her experise and education are invariably viewed as pretentious, snobbish, and above all, impractical. Talents, genius, ability is all dismissed as irrelevent. Knowledge, scholarship, learning and the like are viewed as subversive, threatening, and useless.

The anti-intellectualism endemic in society views the “common sense” of the average person as sufficient or even superior to real knowledge, expertise, and scholarship. Hence the inanities of Christian fundamentalism or the prattlings of some President who claims he hears God talking to him, are seen as superior to factual knowledge. Somehow they never associate their wanton ignorance and belief in their own “common sense” and eschewing of real knowledge as an ideal ground for easy manipulation by their leaders.

The commercial culture such ignorance has spawned creates acquisitiveness and greed, not curiosity, interest, art, or simple inquisitiveness. Independent thought and reason are not wanted. Rather the commercial culture wants group cohesion, corporate co-operation, and above all mass production. It actively discourages the thinker, in favour of the the producer. And most of all discourages any intellectual pursuit which might lead a worker to question the actions of the corporation or board members.

As I pointed out above, the purpose of publicly funded education in many countries, particularly the U.S., Canada, Australia, and Britain, has always been to develop a workforce. Not those who love learning for its own sake. The concept of streaming, alive and well in all these countries, was developed entirely to funnel the soldiers of industry into their appropriate slots. Not to create questioning, questing intellects.

Unreason dominates many cultures. Anti-intellectualism is taken as appropriate by the majority of those in North America. Their open hostility to learning and the learned is palpable. Yet almost no onepauses even for a moment to consider that this attitude plays right into the hands of those who would take advantage of it.

13. Causes

Again, that such a high percentage of the citizenry should be so devoid of knowledge, is IMHO due to several primary factors:

An educational system designed to keep eliminate high outliers and to keep all others deeply acculturated to eschewing intelligent inquiry
A placid media designed to remove depth of coverage, exploration of alternate interpretations, and information contrary to the current social narrative
A culture of fear induction to which the only solution presented is perpetual war
The relegation of spiritual endeavour to formulaic, tautological story book themes and childish narratives
A system of trickle-up economics which takes from the majority and gives to a handful of powerful men.

Wilful ignorance is the fuel that powers wanton militarism, environmental collapse, growing economic inequality, and the destruction of democracy.

14. Conclusion

Ignorance is endemic in modern society. I do not mean the ignorance which comes from lack of access to education, but rather the ignorance of those so thoroughly acculturated to lack of thought, intelligent discourse, and learning for its own sake that questioning the prevailing Weltanschauung never occurs. Instead a willful and virolent ontology of anti-intellectualism which not only does not resist the the infantilisation of society, but welcomes it. The Christian fundamentalist proudly proclaims that there is no need to study science, for their Bible is the only truth they need. The politician proudly declares some oil rich country must be invaded to “bring democracy”. And so on.

Rationality has been replaced by infantile expression and recitation of the formulaic creados of the propagandist.

Well, as always throughout history, war, death, and ignorance go hand in hand. Whether guided by religious intolerance, corporate fiscal greed, perverse fanaticism, or perhaps most of all a pervading and appalling historical ignorance, suppression of as well as lack of knowledge is also the destruction of the right of informed choice. And as shown throughout history, the reslut is curtailment of the ability of society and indeed of humanity as a whole, to soar beyond the mundane.

117 References.