America the (not so) Illiterate

In his article “America the Illiterate” Chris Hedges writes about how the term illiteracy is changing from his point of view. While there are still people who are illiterate, or unable to read, Hedges is redefining illiterate to mean people who can read, but who choose not to. He focuses on how everything is turning into pictures and entertainment. Why read when you can just see a picture and know what to do or what to buy. Hedges has a very harsh critique of the American public. He views the public as brainless simpletons who vote for the entertaining politician and have no independent thought. I also find it interesting that Hedges seems to indirectly blame Obama for America becoming “illiterate”.

While reading this article, I didn’t really find any particular idea confusing or troubling mostly because I think that he is completely wrong. There is not a single part of me that can agree with what he is saying. I will say that we are a society that does focus on entertainment and flash. However, we are still capable of independent thought. We are able to see a political ad campaign claiming how a rival candidate is evil because he or she never went fishing as a child and understand that is ridiculous. And sure some people probably are gullible enough to fall for it. But I don’t believe that society as a whole is unable to discern fact from fiction. It seems as if Hedges is getting all of his statistics from a certain group or demographic of people. I don’t know anyone that doesn’t know at least one historical fact. And everyone that I know is capable of independent thought and reasoning. It is more than insulting saying that the majority of people in America are “illiterate”.

It is interesting comparing this article to Carr’s article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”. In both articles the authors describe how the thought and reasoning of the American public is becoming shallower and shallower. While Carr focuses on blaming the internet for the problem, Hedges focuses on blaming the increasing focus on entertainment in America. Both show how fewer books are being read and bought in America, with Hedges saying that 80% of families did not buy a book last year. And excuse my independent thinking here but that sounds made up. While both articles focus on America becoming stupider, I think that Carr has a bit more faith in the public. He seems to think that we will become computers with endless amounts of information but not a lot of deep thought into the information. Hedges seems to think that we will become brainless idiots only capable of reading pictures and believing anything that is shown to us through some sort of entertainment medium. Both outlooks look bleak, but hey I would prefer to think that America has a chance to become more socially aware and knowledgeable. But again forgive me my independent thinking.