Chris Hedge takes a horrid approach at illiteracy in America. He puts himself on a pedestal for having more of an education than others and puts down the people who may not have the best education. He throws out many facts that to me seem unbelievable at best, and when I looked for some links to where this info might have come from, I found nothing. SO I did a little research for myself and found multiple places with a lot of different facts. One site said America had a 99% literacy rate while another said the functional literacy was somewhere around 80%. Definitely different than what Hedge had to say in his essay.
Carr and Hedge's articles have some similarities as they both try to approach the way American's are changing in the new Information Age. They both mention how American's need constant stimulus from the environment around them as the world around us changes. Americans have been trying to find the most convenient way to do things, and I agree there are certain habits that American citizens are acquiring that are detrimental. The main difference I found is that Carr writes in a way that makes you want to trust him. He gets his point across, but he admits that he is open to human fallacy as much as the rest of us and may be wrong. Hedge to me seems very unprofessional and uses his article to assert his belief that America is not much better than the monkeys that swing around in zoos. I believe he may have some good points, but his essay has no benefits and just puts down everyone instead of trying to be constructive.
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This is pretty much how I felt about the article. Hedges didn't cite any of his statistics, which I think really discredits his argument. I mean, he claims that 80% of families in the US didn't buy ONE book last year. That is just inconceivable to me. I look at the New York Times best seller list, and I just can't convince myself that only 20% of Americans are reading those.
ReplyDeletethe problem is that he doesn't show the other side of the argument. he shows the side which says that america is illiterate and barely even mentions the fact that about 66% is literate. and for quotes and sources he failed. one quote that may or may not pertain to what he is trying to say, depending on its context and, i might add, he never provided the source from which it came. the only other source was a brief mention of the Princeton review without a quote. he cant really support his case if he doesn't have any evidence.
ReplyDeleteGood move in checking those stats. I'm also wondering what sources Hedges has for those. Knowing his professional record I want to give him the benefit of the doubt, but those are incredible numbers.
ReplyDeleteI also thought your attention to the different methods of Hedges and Carr was a strong point of analysis.