Thoughts on: The Foundations of Liberty…oops, Literacy
Are we free, as the Blakes, quoting Sella, imply to enter this new “alternative to Babel” (74)? One would surmise we are. And, what are we confronted with? Well, we can “skim and choose what material we wish to retain from the available print [because] such activity is impossible with oral language” (74). How much time is there in a day? How many angels can you fit on the head of a pin? You cannot quantify the number of books, articles, items, blogs and general information or misinformation one must slog through to find that “material we wish to retain.” In concordance, the Blakes offer “the storage system may be a victim of its own success” (74). That is, to say the least, an understatement. The alternative is, on this holiest of days in the Jewish calendar, to atone. As opposed to atoning for not remembering our past by storing virtually nothing, we must now atone for thinking it possible to store everything that has ever been thought, much less written. Daunting is the prospect, an understatement that leads one to despair. Does this desperation allow one to wrestle the facts to the ground? Such grappling needs a referee. Is anyone qualified? The Blakes write, “only with writing can we retain the information that forms the basis of all [political bureaucracies]” (75). How much do we need? Do we need more or is it more that any group of individuals can presume to absorb. Think of “mark-ups” on the Senate health reform bill. There are over five hundred on more than one thousand pages of proposed legislation that no one effectively understands, probably including the originators and drafters of the bill. So much for literacy.