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of literacy, now an accepted surrogate for literacy in the old sense, has
three man ifes tations.
First, the utilitarian minimum in language use which is now
learned is defined by and dependent upon institutions (government,
education, and business) and on forces in society external to the
individual. The new utilitarian minimum is an opaque, specialized
language adapted to a particular social or economic function. Consider
the language of government and the academy, both easy targets for the
Newmans, Simons, and Safires . The prose of civil and social service
personnel is full of somehow useful jargon, pretensions, obfuscation,
and self-referential meanings, often in defiance of proper usage.
Second, the level of literacy required for interpersonal contact is
nominal in a world of telephones and easy transportation. What is not
nominal is impenetrable. The official languages of psychological
therapy and interpersonal insight, now commonplace outside of
professional contexts, have become specialized and somewhat ludi–
crous from a common-sense point of view. This is especially notice–
able in the interior and self-defining language of communal cults and
quasi-religious sects like EST, the "Moonies," the Hare Krishnas, and
Scien tology.
Third, in industry and business, the standardization of machinery,
tools, and parts in the nineteenth century, which permitted inter–
changeability and a rational base for rapid industrial growth, has
developed a twentieth-century linguistic counterpart. The modern
language of professions and skilled work for which higher education is
required, including business, industry, and social and civil service, has
become uniform and specific, standardized, technical, and formulaic.
The evolution of computer languages parallels and obliquely illumi–
nates this process. Individuality and idiosyncrasy in prose or speech
have become uneconomical and unacceptable in the skilled work place.
A novel or elegant use of language would be like putting Rolls-Royce
parts into a Ford car; or better, trying to place one's own handmade
parts into any car.
Young college-bound students or job-seeking graduates have
grown up with a reinforced sense that becoming literate means
learning a given, narrow set of special, rational rules for particular
functional games in society. They discover that they learn such literacy
by imitation. After all, all one needs to command is a narrow range of
signs and symbols whose meaning often diverges from common usage.
A more general command of English is rendered beside the point of
"the good life." English has become splintered into a variety of socially
functional and economically programmable languages. Since the
