a little more McLuhan (& maybe Pynchon)

[Paul Mackin]

On 8/24/2011 12:55 AM, John Bailey wrote:
> Literacies are plural as well, so it's not even a straight scale...
>
> I wrote an article last year after a report stated that 46% of 
> Australians don't have the literacy skills to "effectively 
> participate" in modern society - they may know their letters but that 
> doesn't mean they can understand a mortgage contract or fill in an 
> insurance claim etc. The kinds of language used by some institutions 
> (banks...) almost seems designed to exploit this problem. Don't have 
> figures for the rest of the world at hand but if you compound the 
> similar high rates for numeracy problems it helps make clear why 
> insurmountable debt is such an issue today.

Speaking of algorithms and computers I think most mortgage contracts and 
also IRS instructions are probably written by a computers and 
consequently require another  computer to read and interpret them.

P
>
> http://www.theage.com.au/national/you-wouldnt-read-about-it-20100508-ul30.html
>
> And David, I reckon most people today would mistake such an 
> inner-life-richness test with some sort of measure of "happiness". I 
> think that's barking up the wrong one.
>
>
> On Wed, Aug 24, 2011 at 2:43 PM, David Payne <dpayne1912 at hotmail.com 
> <mailto:dpayne1912 at hotmail.com>> wrote:
>
>
>     "literate" vs. "pre-literate" peoples is gray scale, not an "Us"
>     vs. "Them".
>
>     For example:
>
>     * Does "literate" mean able to read a newspaper written at an 8th
>     grade (U.S.) level?
>
>     * Or does literate mean recognize that an arrow means "this way"?
>
>     A genuine question (I know this sounds factious, but I'm truly
>     curious): Is there a test/scale for measuring the richness of
>     one's inner life?
>
>

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