Illiteracy That Has Symbols

After reading Chris Hedges’ “America the Illiterate,” I was some what disturbed by the statistics that were thrown around. How almost a third of America’s people today are illiterate or barely literate, or how the presidential debate speeches have been dumbed down as the years have progressed to a now astonishing fifth grade reading level. The fact that a good portion of the people in America who aren’t able to read are still liable for electing our president is appalling. How Hedges describes and develops the issue of this is quite interesting. When I first began reading this article, I didn’t expect it to be about the presidential debates and how the illiterate are having huge effects over the final decisions. He seems to have blamed this exact opinion on why Obama won his election and why he feels he may win his reelection this year. Due to the fact that Hedges feels that Obama uses millions of dollars to dictate the general public and manipulate them with “appealing,” “glittering,” and “self-destructive” illusions, he feels Obama as well supplies to the political side of the story that they are all giving in to the fact that people are simply forgetting about the truths about elections, and are simply now focusing on how someone looks on TV, to the way they carry themselves, or how they seem to be a “nice person” who will take care of the peoples’ needs. I on the other hand believe that since Obama came from this kind of background, that he is not just playing that game, but that he is truly trying to do things that benefit the grater good.
Now, in order to understand where Chris Hedges is coming from in this argument, one must know the aspects of what he feels is America’s form of illiteracy. Hedges focus on the aspect that people pay attention to the visualizations of the commercial world. How people who are illiterate are deprived of other forms of getting by in this world. People who are illiterate will go to fast foot restaurants because they can order from pictures. Because of these lacks in daily life, Hedges sees these illiterate people as struggling on most basic chores, and that they watch helplessly as the world around them continues on with out them knowing how to enter into this realm.
Now, as for the connections between Chris Hedge and Nicholas Carr, they both described how our society’s change from a print-based culture has transformed our nation. As well, they both see that the core values of our society, like thinking for ourselves, common sense, understanding historical facts, and separating truth from fallacy are all dying because of the change from a text-based society, to one that is controlled and dominated by technology.