Post #7 The Top of the Tip of the Iceberg

http://www.truthdig.com/report/page2/20081110_america_the_illiterate/

The most troubling issue Hedge’s article brought to light for me was how easy it seemed to be to live in this alternate reality.  I find myself believing that education and cultural endeavors yield a more profound sense of happiness that lasts a long time after the stimulus, but when a constant stream of shallowness is given to us, it seems to be dangerously comfortable to live in a constant state of moving from one visceral reaction to the next. A perfect example of this sampler of ideas that we are thrown into is the experience of highway advertisement. As I speed between this blur of smiling faces and phone numbers, all I get is short shallow responses that have no true middle or end. All I feel I’m getting from most signs I see in modern society is equivalent to what I get when I see the first lavishly decorated letter of a book, input without actual meaning. Society is getting so close to the top of the tip of iceberg that we might not even know it’s an iceberg anymore. In other words, deep is becoming shallow. I was shocked when I saw that Gore’s vocabulary in the presidential debates was at a level similar to an 8^th grader. Compared to his competition, I saw Gore as an intellectual. Now that I can see that his literacy level during a speech is only a little more than half of what the founding fathers’ vocabulary levels were, I am beginning to see the tip of the iceberg: our modern day society’s leaders are trying to become so universal and so “democratic” that they are merely diluting the individuality and diversity of life. A democracy without individualism becomes totalitarian. As our culture becomes increasingly tabular, there is no individuality to be had. To answer the question of how much Hedge relates to Carr, I do see an important thread connecting these two articles. They both believe that mental struggle is the path to a meaningful life. The “best” works of art stretch our minds, whereas the blockbusters nowadays allow us to stay exactly where we are: ignorant bliss.

"Just as you must come through a woman's womb to attain physical birth, so must you come through Wisdom to achieve mental birth. And like childbirth, Wisdom often comes with pain." -RZA