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May 15, 2005
Smart, Dumb, Literacy, Elitism and Albert Nock
I've long wanted to read Albert Nock's Theory of Education in the United States. It's not in our library system, and while waiting for ILL I decided to read his autobiography, Memoirs of a Superfluous Man.
I'll have to find a copy of my own, because of course I can't fill the library book with scribbled notes and highlightings. I find something to copy down on every page. This is delightful reading, even though I only understand about half of it; one day I will go through it again and track down the allusions, the foreign quotes, all the references I don't understand. Still, his ideas are clear, especially as he speaks on education.
Do our more complex TV and computer games make us smarter? What about the fact that vastly more people are literate today than in the mid-1800s? Doesn't that alone make us smarter?
Maybe.
Sure, more of us can read. Most of us can read. I've always wondered how much better off we are for our high rate of literacy. It ought to be a no-brainer. The goal of universal literacy has always been a goal of democratic levelling: when we can all read, we will all be that smart. But of course there's more to reading than being functionally literate.
Here is what Albert Nock had to say about literacy in the early 1900s:
One might assume that as the level of literacy rose, the level of general intelligence would rise with it, and consequently that the economic demand for good literature would also rise. This, roughly, was Mr. Jefferson's idea, and indeed it has always been at the root of our system of free public instruction for everyone. It has, however, somehow failed to work out according to expectation. ... On the contrary, as I discovered as long ago as my undergraduate days, very few literate persons are able to read, very few indeed. ... I do not mean that the great majority are unable to read intelligently; I mean that they are unable to read at all -- unable, that is, to carry away from a piece or printed matter anything like a correct idea of its content. They are more or less adept at passing printed matter through their minds, after a fashion, especially such matter as is addressed to mere sensation, but this is not reading. Reading implies a use of the reflective faculty, and very few have that faculty developed much beyond the anthropoid stage, let alone possessing it at a stage of development which makes reading practicable.
Ouch. He's elitist and hyperbolic, but he does have a point.
Well, that would be me. Anthropoid. Scarier still is that as I don't have a well-developed reflective faculty, I certainly don't know how to go about getting my kids one. That's not true. I have ideas of how to learn to read reflectively, and pass the skill to my sons. It's stunning that I have a degree in literature, and I can just barely read. At least I know it. That's something.
Posted by lynx at May 15, 2005 3:09 PM
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Stephanie has been reading Albert Jay Nock's autobiography Memoirs of a Superfluous Man from 1943 (at least, this printing is). She's been sharing bits on her blog, and today showed me a page that I feel compelled to quote in full:When I saw what Ameri... [Read More]
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Comments
Yup. Anthropoid. That's me. And I have no intention of allowing my kidlets to leave the nest w/o better honed mental survival skills than I had. It's not elitist, it's honest. It's ok to say, "Yeah, we're soooo lacking in some areas." The key is whether we're willing to do something about it!
Dy
Posted by: Dy at May 16, 2005 12:21 AM
You say "elitist" like it's a bad thing! ;) But now I've got to go read Nock. -M.
P.S. Thanks for the Johnny Tremain recommendation. What a great book!
Posted by: Mungo at May 16, 2005 6:42 AM
Nah. Mungo, I'm thoroughly elitist myself. Nock certainly is, and I thought it might be fair to warn anti-elitist types before they wander into his works.
Do read him. He's delightful. I'll be posting more excerpts.
I'm glad you liked Johnny Tremain too!
Dy - are we anthropoid navel-gazing autodidacts?
Posted by: Stephanie at May 16, 2005 7:31 AM
CED turned me on to Nock a couple of months back when she wrote to recommend The Disadvantages of Being Educated & Other Essays. She wrote, in part:
"I don't know how he has managed to escape the 'to read' list on classical education issues. He is a wonderful combination of Paul Fussell and Tracey Lee Simmons. In fact, I think Simmons said he was the only modern author he ever liked."
http://mentalmultivitamin.blogspot.com/2005/02/gort-klaatu-barada-nikto.html
If I remember correctly, CED couldn't get her hands on a copy of the autobiography. You're a lucky gal. (*grin*)
And, for the record, elitism is a fine concept. One wonders what the, as you call them, "anti-elitists" have against the pursuit of excellence.
Best regards from outside of Chicago.
MFS
Posted by: MFS at May 16, 2005 10:34 AM
Oh dear! LOL! That was a coffee-spewing incident out of nowhere. If our official title gets much longer, we're going to have to shorten it or find a great acronym.
I love your book recommendations.
Dy
Posted by: Dy at May 16, 2005 10:31 PM