I wish that was a joke. There is a direct correlation with the rise of fascism and the decline of American reading scores. Currently nearly a quarter of our adult population is functionally illiterate. Meaning they can identify words, they can send texts, they can reply to messages or read headlines, but are incapable of anything more advanced than that.
We somehow think that there’s a sharp line between “cannot read at all” and “can sit down with a paperback and be whisked away to another world” when actually it’s a spectrum, like everything else.
Really what this means is that a sizeable set of our population, because they suck at reading, also suck at forming language in their heads, and because of this cannot manage and consider complicated, abstract ideas or reframe thoughts into words that can be analyzed. When you live like this, you tend to just go along with whatever other people are doing and you have intense emotional reactions to everything you see.
This is precisely why it’s every government’s top priority to cripple the education system. Or if it’s already crippled - either cripple it further or just keep it as is, depending on the circumstances.
Personally I live in the EU, so it’s not nearly as bad for me as it is for Americans. However, even in Europe most politicians and their parties get elected simply because people don’t know better and follow whatever their preferred TV station says.
A lot of Europeans also have difficulties separating personal feelings from politics. You criticize one politician and suddenly everyone is mad, because that means you must be a devoted supporter of their opponent. Sometimes it feels like everyone is brainwashed, because they can only do ‘white’ or ‘black’, as if there were no other shades in between.
The people who need to read this cannot read.
I wish that was a joke. There is a direct correlation with the rise of fascism and the decline of American reading scores. Currently nearly a quarter of our adult population is functionally illiterate. Meaning they can identify words, they can send texts, they can reply to messages or read headlines, but are incapable of anything more advanced than that.
We somehow think that there’s a sharp line between “cannot read at all” and “can sit down with a paperback and be whisked away to another world” when actually it’s a spectrum, like everything else.
Really what this means is that a sizeable set of our population, because they suck at reading, also suck at forming language in their heads, and because of this cannot manage and consider complicated, abstract ideas or reframe thoughts into words that can be analyzed. When you live like this, you tend to just go along with whatever other people are doing and you have intense emotional reactions to everything you see.
This is precisely why it’s every government’s top priority to cripple the education system. Or if it’s already crippled - either cripple it further or just keep it as is, depending on the circumstances.
Personally I live in the EU, so it’s not nearly as bad for me as it is for Americans. However, even in Europe most politicians and their parties get elected simply because people don’t know better and follow whatever their preferred TV station says.
A lot of Europeans also have difficulties separating personal feelings from politics. You criticize one politician and suddenly everyone is mad, because that means you must be a devoted supporter of their opponent. Sometimes it feels like everyone is brainwashed, because they can only do ‘white’ or ‘black’, as if there were no other shades in between.