Let me call your attention to another insightful post published by Kevin Munger a couple of weeks ago, as a follow up of my previous one, in order to dig deeper into the ultimate question of whether we are living the end of writing and reading (literacy) as technological foundations of our society.

Media theorists McLuhan, Postman, Ong and Flusser all agree on this point: the technology of writing is a necessary condition for the emerge of liberal/democratic/Enlightenment/rationalist culture; mass literacy and the proliferation of cheap books/newspapers is necessary for this culture to spread beyond the elite to the whole of society.

This was an expensive project. Universal high school requires a significant investment, both to pay the teachers/build the schools and in terms of the opportunity cost to young people. Up until the end of the 20th century, the bargain was worth it for all parties involved. Young people might not have enjoyed learning to read, write 5-paragraph essays or identify the symbolism in Lord of the Flies, but it was broadly obvious that reading and writing were necessary to navigate society and to consume the overwhelming majority of media.

And it’s equally obvious to today’s young people that this is no longer the case, that they will not need to spend all this time and effort learning to read long texts in order to communicate.

For many of us, born in a culture of literacy, writing and reading seems unquestionable. However, writing and reading, like every other one, is a technology far from neutral. It may be great for our memory and imagination, but isn’t it also the foundation of bureaucracy and power?

The possible future end of writing and reading is a question I’ve had the opportunity to discuss with very illustrated people in several occasions, and it is incredible how the present sequesters our capacity to anticipate possible futures. I have practically found no one who thinks it is even a possibility. With, of course, seminal exceptions.

Until now when this collapse is increasingly obvious:

Something alarming is happening with reading in America. Leisure reading by some accounts has declined by about 50 percent this century. Literacy scores are declining for fourth and eighth graders at alarming rates. And even college students today are complaining to teachers that they can’t read entire books. The book itself, that ancient piece of technology for storing ideas passed down across decades, is fading in curricula across the country, replaced by film and TV and YouTube.

Our political culture is unable to comprehend the depth of the problem posed by changing media technology, Kevin goes on:

we need to appreciate that we don’t have any ground to stand on when it comes to understanding humanity and our relationship to media technology. This is Flusser’s idea of groundlessness,

This means that it’s impossible to make evaluations of whether a change in media technology (or, if you like, progress in media technology) is going to have good or bad effects on us.

What I can tell you for sure is this: future people born in a future different technology ground will perceive their world, no matter what, as a happy one, better than ours!