LEON BOTSTEIN
407
There remains, therefore, substaOlial truth in the historic aspira–
tion for mass literacy. Active and not passive thinking can be the result
of traditional literacy. Critical thinking on complex matters-moral,
aesthetic, political, and cognitive-in the West has required and
probably will always require the command of written language.
Indeed, if literacy is not reclaimed and spread where it has not yet been,
the future of thinking and culture may be at stake.
The change in the character of accepted literacy affects the illiter–
ate poor in this country and the truly marginally literate (for instance,
our urban high school graduates). The sensibilities of the upper
classes , and the apparent shift in the significance and definition of
literacy, have filtered down. The suspicion that the new literacy might
increase the occasions for the domination of the poor by the rich in
economic and political terms has been subtly fueled over the last
twenty years. The mistrust of majority-controlled public schooling by
the minorities and by the poor has certainly not waned, especially in
the cities. Perhaps the poor understand that in terms of the n ew
literacy, language acquisition can prevent a clear expression of ethnic
or class consciousness and can help stabilize a functionally subservient
role for the poor. Furthermore, if the imitative literacy that the affluent
practice is all that literacy means, then the drive for literacy among the
poor loses its noneconomic attractiveness, its political and social
imperatives.
If
literacy no longer insures participation in a common
language with access to common political and social experiences and
opportunities in freedom and power, then even a marginal new literacy
among the poor will grow only proportionally to particular skilled
labor employment opportunities. In the absence of jobs, no believable
exhortations are possible to promote mass literacy. Nevertheless,
whatever literacy is spread will be a pale copy of the kind now being
recognized and rewarded by the bestowal of baccalaureate, masters, and
doctoral degrees.
Where the Safires, the Newmans, and the Simons have gone astray
is in their obsession with illiteracy as the target of snobbish contempt.
They bemoan a lack of culture, a lack which can easily be cosmetic and
superficial and reversed without ever getting at the root of the cultural
malaise. To be offended in the manner that the gentry are offended by
the improper manners of common folk is to fail
to
realize that proper
use of language alone does not itself show literacy in the true sense.
Literacy is the ability to think and express in speech and print complex
anal ytic and cri tical though ts and feel ings . It is the abi lity to do so in a
clear and easily understood manner, and to retain, manipulate, and
command complex ideas and expressions. Proper use of English is
