Countering My Take on Hedges

In Chris Hedges’ article “America the Illiterate” he describes his take on literacy in America today. He focuses on how the illiterate people today can only function in society using images and only understanding the bare minimum of what is going on. In my analysis of what his take on literacy is in America I wrote about how the Chris Hedges is convinced that the media today is causing people to lose all independent thought and be unable to make well-informed decisions. In doing so I did not consider who Hedges meant by the illiterate. As I was reading his article it seemed as though he was writing about everyone in America. However, upon further reflection I see that he was writing more about those who are technically “illiterate”. He was not writing about people of high socio-economic status, or probably even people who graduated from high school. He was writing about those who have had a very limited education and therefore very limited reading abilities.

Because I did not take this into account in my paper, my writing does seem to be incomplete. I can see that there is some point to the fact that the people who are not well-educated may not be well-informed as to how our politics work or how important decisions being made in the government may affect them. I think that in this way Hedges does have a point. We do need to make sure that everyone is equally informed of their rights and anything else of importance. By taking more into account the subject of what the author is talking about, it can bring greater meaning to an analysis. By not analyzing the whole paper, it reflects poorly on my own writing. I hope that by doing this assignment, I will have a more critical eye of my own analyses in the future.