cross-posted from: https://lemmit.online/post/1006130
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The original was posted on /r/aboringdystopia by /u/Last_Salad_5080 on 2023-10-03 14:21:04.
this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2023
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Poorly educated people are more susceptible to manipulation, misinformation, and propaganda. And a low reading level is both an indication of a poor educational level, and an impediment to a person educating themselves further.
Reading is a fundamental skill in the modern world.
Clearly reading above a 6th-grade level isn't a fundamental skill in the modern world, or 54% of American adults wouldn't be able to function in it.
Being able to parse a long sentence filled with long words has absolutely no bearing on your susceptibility to propaganda.
No. I don't consider those adults to be "functioning" at an appropriate level.
cool we're back to elitism
Maybe you should try reading what people are writing instead of falling back on strawmen.
I do not believe people who cannot read at an adult level are able to access and understand the information and knowledge they need to navigate the world effectively. And that makes them vulnerable.
That's not elitism.
No, that's ableism.
https://www.theodysseyonline.com/functioning-labels-ableist-nonsense
https://web.archive.org/web/20230605065733/https://ollibean.com/intelligence-is-an-ableist-concept/
https://disabledfeminists.com/2009/10/23/ableist-word-profile-intelligence/
https://www.bristolautismsupport.org/ableism
E: If you're looking to protect vulnerable people, who will always exist, how about addressing those who take advantage of them, and our ableist (and classist, and racist) societies that enable and even encourages it?
I'm not talking about intelligence or IQ. I didn't even say "intelligence".
I'm talking about access to information.
Not every single individual needs to be a skilled reader. But people, in general, do need to be able to access information. If significant parts of the population are struggling to read, that's not a condemnation on them as individuals, but can mean that they are vulnerable to being cut off from information they need to live their best lives, or to impact the world in the way they might desire to.
That is ableism, plain and simple (you don't have to say a word for it to be heavily implied, and if you'd read further you would have realised it's about much more than IQ, but even if we ignore that word, that statement is still ableist). People are able to process information and the world around them in a variety of ways, you not seeing it as effective, or it not being for you, doesn't mean it isn't.
And those who still struggle should be supported where they are, not expected to fit in to the abled (and capitalist) "box" (edit to clarify: people struggle because society is designed to exclude them, not because these arbitrary skills are necessary for survival, except for in a capitalist system which only values "productivity").
Alright I'm going to admit I chose my words a bit poorly in that quote. Sorry. Because it was not my intention to judge the "effectiveness" of individuals, but rather comment on how populations of people navigate the world.
Which is what the post was originally about. That huge swaths of US folks are reading at a below-par level. This isn't about differences in ability or intelligence. If at the population level, literacy is low, that's about education, or some other influence.
And if large numbers of people are less able to access information, that's a problem. That limits those populations.
While one of my statements was badly worded, now you're starting to put words in my mouth.
I did not say otherwise, and I would not say otherwise, because I agree.
Yes. Two frameworks of disability. The ableist framework locates the "issue" in the disabled person's body. But that's arbitrary, and we can easily think of the issue being located in the societal constructs that don't take into account different people's abilities, and are thus not fit for purpose.
You're saying that, in your personal judgement, the average US citizen isn't navigating life as effectively as you deem they should be able to.
That really sounds like elitism to me.
Looking at the current state of the US... That's not the point that you might think it is.
Yes, I think if the average US citizen had better access to information, they might be able to make more positive change to the world around them.
I think people are capable of more than just existing and being "productive" as defined by today's capitalist world. So consider that what you call "functioning", I think people have the potential for more than that, if given the tools. That's the opposite of elitism.
If you are not even going to try and entertain a conflicting perspective, and just sit there and throw accusations, then you are wasting my time.
Now it's just elitism repackaged as condescension.
The average person can read the average article just fine, given that the average article is quite literally written specifically so that the average person can read it. A publishing house that only puts out materials in Shakespearean prose is not going to last long.
I don't know what "access to information" you're thinking that the average US adult doesn't have.
Bite me, you utter waste of time.
This is simply untrue. There is no world in which someone with 6th grade reading comprehension is going to be able to read, absorb and parse a 3000 word article on a complex political or scientific or economic issue, no matter how simple the language used. It's just not going to happen. Full stop.
If you want to be a well-informed citizen, you have to be able to read at least at a 12th grade level.
The last two decades have underscored this.
Not just elitism, either
https://medium.com/no-prescription-needed/grammar-the-worlds-most-under-recognized-social-construct-a54e096ecc9c
It's not a direct cause and effect between better reading and propaganda resilience, it's an enabler hence gets reflected as "probability of", not as a certainty.
The more effective you are at taking in information and gaining understanding through reading, if you actually use it often, the more you know (both in terms of contextual knowlege around various subjects and other things you read on that subject hence have references to compare new information about it) so the more resilient you are to propaganda (for example: some things are only obviously illogical if you know enough about the context to see that they can't happen as a piece of propaganda is trying to convince you they did).
Being good at reading doesn't make people resilient to propaganda directly, it makes it more likely that they are resilient to propaganda because it's easier for them to acquire broader and deeper knowledge so many do, whilst many who would otherwise tend to seek broader knowledge give up because their level of reading makes it a much harder task (for the latter reading is a barrier more than an enabler).
This is also why reading level isn't an elitist thing: bright curious people no matter their origin will go much farther if they have better tools to acquire knowledge and understand it, and the fastest most effective way to provide a lot of those tools to them is schooling, so if they don't have them it's probably not their fault.
PS: also and as a side note, to get to advanced levels in lots of occupations you need the capability to acquire lots of information, hence you need to know how to read at a good level (for example, for dealing with certain cars, a car mechanic will have to read technical manuals - they can acquire the knowledge for run-of-the-mil repairs from others, but for advanced, better paying work they have to be able to figure it out themselves and in the present day that will be by reading technical manuals). Sure, people can "function" with low reading skills (that's such a low standard that both my grandmother and my grandfather could "function" as totally illiterate people), but low reading level makes it harder to prosper in the modern world because so much of the advanced stuff is "locked" behind complex texts which require fast reading with good reading comprehension to be "unlocked" in a reasonable time frame.