Aliteracy: I’m not aware of too many things

This blog is dedicated to my mother. Thank you for teaching me to read and giving me my love of learning, reading and inquisitiveness.  Love you Mommy.

Aliteracy is defined as the quality or state of being able to read but uninterested in doing so. The lyrics of the 80’s song “What I Am” by Edie Brickell illustrate the effects of aliteracy: “I'm not aware of too many things, but I know what I know if you know what I mean. Philosophy is the talk on a cereal box. Religion is the smile on a dog.” In other words, I don’t know much and I’m not trying to understand anything and this is one the biggest problems in America today. It underlies 99% of our political and societal problems. Without reading, your knowledge of current events, politics, history, science and everything else is very limited and probably incorrect.

Mark Twain, "The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them”.

Fun Facts about reading in America (Source: Some startling statistics)

•  1/3 of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives.
• 42 percent of college graduates never read another book after college.
• 80 percent of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year.
• 70 percent of U.S. adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.   
•  57 percent of new books are not read to completion.

"What aliteracy does is breed illiteracy.”If you go through school having learned to read and then you leave school not wanting to read, chances are you won't put your own children into a reading environment." Dr. Kylene Beers, Professor of Reading at the University of Houston

When you don’t read but you can, you only know what you have read in school (maybe). For many of us, school was a very long time ago. When you don’t read books, all the decisions you make are based on old information. You might think you know what you heard on television but it leaves you at a disadvantage because you have no way to verify what you heard. Reading is critical to intellectual development; your ability to understand, reason, draw correct conclusions, and in general not be taken for a sucker and used by every person who spouts trash on television, the internet or on the radio. In addition to being pawns, people who don’t read, also probably don’t write well. 

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”, George Santayana, The Life of Reason, Vol. I, Reason in Common Sense

If you have never read about the past, the future is a constant surprise. You will fall for everything, because most bad ideas have been done in the past and there is always someone out there who wants to resurrect an old, failure because this time it will work, for sure. If you don’t get any new information you might be tempted to believe that the sun revolves around earth, like almost 20% of Americans actually believe.  Without information, all new things are scary; all changes create chaos. Our democracy depends on well informed citizens.  The current level of general ignorance in the United States is a lot higher than it should be at this stage of our development.

TV shows and movies on history are not a substitute for reading and knowing actual history or in the case of Sara Palin or Glen Beck just making things up about about history. One of my favorite examples of just making things up about history is the television series The Tudors on Showtime. I liked this show but I knew it was not an accurate account. Tudor England is one of the subjects I have read extensively about. History is really one of the most interesting subjects you can read, there is no reason to embellish. There are lots of things that have happened in the past that are fascinating. The producers of the Tudors decided to make stuff up to make the show more interesting and to play better on TV; I read this on the show web site. Books made into movies fare no better. Most of the time a book is more interesting than a movie based on a book. Additionally, the producers and directors of movies leave out whole segments of a book usually making the movie somewhat dumb and incoherent. Books often discuss topics that are considered taboo by our screen media.

If you have never read about the past, the future is a constant surprise. You will fall for everything, because most bad ideas have been done in the past but there is always someone out there who wants to resurrect an old, failure because this time it will work, for sure. If you don’t get any new information you might be tempted to believe that the sun resolves around earth, like almost 20% of Americans actually believe.  Without information, all new things are scary; all changes create chaos. Our democracy depends on well informed citizens.  The current level of general ignorance in the United States is a lot high than it should be at this stage of our development.

TV shows and movies on history are not a substitute for reading and knowing actual history or in the case of Sara Palin or Glen Beck just making things up about bout history. One of my favorite examples of this is the television series The Tudors on Showtime. I liked this show but I knew it was not an accurate account. Tudor England is one of the subjects I have read extensively about. History is really one of the most interesting things you can read, there is no reason to embellish. There are a lot of things that have happened in the past that are fascinating. The producers of the Tudors decided to make stuff up to make the show more interesting and to play better on TV; I read this on the show web site. Books made into movies fare no better. Most of the time a book is more interesting than a movie base on a book. Books often discuss topics that are considered taboo by our screen media. Additionally, the producers and directors of movies leave out all whole segments of a book making the movie somewhat dumb.

The aliteracy problem is only increasing; students are not reading they are skimming for facts and information. If you don’t establish the habit when you are young, you will become lazier and lazier about reading. Many people and businesses come up with ways to get around the fact that lots of people won’t actually read anything. They add pictures, charts and graphs, use bulleted text, make instructional videos, talk in sound bites and slogans and a host of other methods. The world is a complex place and 9 times out of 10 a bullet point cannot explain things in a way that makes sense. Think about your own life, if you had to explain it using one power point slide with 5 bullets, do you think people would know anything about you. Speaking for myself, no definitely not! Everything can’t be boiled down into one or two points. If you don’t get the details you are missing a lot. Reading gives you the details you need to function well in a complex world. Reading gives your brain more control because it causes you  to imagine and contemplate.

Aliteracy  is a condition that can be cured just by reading. Earlier this year I was at a bookstore with my family. I discovered that my partner’s son did not like to read, which as you can imagine was very shocking to me since the rest of us were gathering up books to purchase at the speed of light. We talked about why he did not like to read and I asked him if there was any book he would like to read.  He actually wanted to read Percy Jackson and the Olympians. The store did not have it but his father and I found it at another bookstore, bought it and presented it to him. After a time he started to read it, enjoyed it and now he is finishing book three and eager to read books four and five. The best part of this story is that we did not buy the other books; he bought them himself without prompting. I think he just needed some encouragement to read; he also needed to know we thought it was abnormal not to read books (and it is abnormal).

Just read something, a book or a newspaper.  Encourage your spouse, partner, children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews, the neighbors’ children and your friends to read. You will be amazed at the results.  Ignorance it not bliss. Knowledge is power.

Ciao for now,

Fobbsie

P.S. I am currently reading: