LEON BOTSTEIN
403
dependence is fostered by the absence of a common, shared language
and the rise of a new technical literacy.
The causes of the new character of literacy and the change in the
perception of language and literacy are staggering in social and
political terms. The consequences are catastrophic in terms of ideals of
a common body politic, social unity, and a shared political process. A
crucial conspirator in this development has been higher education.
The new definition of literacy is actively supported by the academy.
Radical change in the academy's approach to literacy is urgently
needed. The sense that higher education can, if it so desires, still de
something, derives in part from our conviction that what happens in
education before college is quite beyond anyone's control and is
subject, at best, to only slow improvement.
In
contrast, college educa–
tors , parents, and students have for decades viewed the college years as a
second chance, a place to unlearn and relearn and learn material for the
first time. Colleges have the habit of telling the outside world and also
complaining to themselves that they must provide remedial services . ln
1980 colleges do sense the need to teach basic skills. Although they
concede that literacy in any sense should be commonplace among high
school graduates, the staffs of colleges have become more and more
prepared each year to teach entering college students reading and
writing. This recognition of a "back to basics " need should constitute
the opportunity if the literacy taught in the university were not, in fact,
quintessentially the new ideal of literacy.
Consequently, the good intentions and opportunities in colleges
foster a deceptive illusion. Students who complete college-from the
community and junior colleges to the Ivy League-fail to become
literate in the old, serious way, and yet appear sufficiently and
functionally literate in the new way. This is not surprising, for
academic professionals are masters of the technical functional jargon
which has become the new literacy. Whether the field is English,
literary criticism (with its structuralism and semiotics), psychology,
sociology, philosophy, or even religion, each discipline has developed
a mini-language, a set of patlerns of expression and sets of words and
phrases. A command of these mini-languages has become essential for
professional recognition and institutional advancement in the
academy. The faculties of American colleges and universities have, like
the rest of the professions, become collectively economically dependent
on their ability to manipulate and communicate a narrow, non–
common special language officially regarded as legitimate and essen–
tial for an academic career.
Teachers in the college classroom are, therefore, the certified
