[lbo-talk] Essential Reading - Hah!

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Sun Feb 5 05:38:48 PST 2012


Later in the day I'll both read your original post carefully, _and_ spend time on working out the logic of this post. For now I'm going to take just one question in isolation. That will introduce error (oblique response) but not, I think, incorrigible error into the whole exchange.

-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of Dennis Claxton Sent: Sunday, February 05, 2012 5:22 AM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org; lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Essential Reading - Hah!

-----Original Message-----
>From: Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu>


>6 (7?) billion people. We do not know for what proportion of them reading
>and writing (regardless of training) can or will be a _comfortable_
>activity. And for billions now it is not in fact comfortable. Are you
>denying them the capacity for happiness unless they learn to read and
write?

Come on Carrol. I'm not going to drag out my logic manual, but there are at least two more than one logical fallacy in this response.

I'll play though. People have asked you this before and as far as I know you've never responded. Why did you study literature? And I'll go you one further. Why do people on this list, generally speaking, love your posts about literature better than most of your other posts (unscientific finding of course.)?

You ask, " Why did you study literature?"

Actually, I do not know the answer to this question, and I'm not really sure that any answer exists. I can toss out a few (unscientific) observations. In the 2d grade I did not consider myself a good reader (probably incorrectly). Then one day my mother took me to the local library, I read some book (I think an Oz book) & I never stopped reading. The next observation may be germane to the (probable) logic behind your question. Reading came easy to me. I mean, it _really_ came easy, so easy that for a couple years (and still to some extent to the very present) it distorted my pronunciation of many English words: for a few months at one point I went around referring to "IZlands" (pronouncing the first syllable as spelled). Now it seems to me that that _ease_ of reading, that utter unconsciousness of any source of difficulty in reading, is THE only relevant fact for purposes of this discussion.

That is, the human population (focusing now only on that fraction of it who are 'exposed' to reading in their early days) divides into two categories, differentiated by the ease and unconsciousness with which they pick up a text and read. For one category that act NEVER becomes one of ease: it is a very conscious and painstaking act. One, and only one, of the sub-categories has been identified: dyslexia. I would assert it as a certainty that many other barriers to ease of reading exist.

If this is true, then to impose on the entire school-age population the requirement that they read, that they ground their major activity for 10 or 12 years on reading, is a deliberate act of extreme cruelety. It distorts their lives in ways that may well be irreparable.

And whatever one can say of reading applies even more strongly to writing. This grounding of human life in 'reading and writing' may be one of the more terrible prices of capitalism.

Carrol

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