The decline in reading undermines our ability to make sense of the world and to govern our societies.
Posted yesterday at 3:00 p.m.
The advent of digital technologies has profoundly changed the way we live and interact with others. This has democratized the use of written language and access to a considerable number of cultural and linguistic resources.
But it also reduced our ability to concentrate, especially to read continuously and sustained.
The Decline of Deep Literacy
The torrent of information and stimuli to which our smart devices expose us tends to diminish our ability to grasp complex issues, ask fundamental questions and develop our creativity.
We are somehow caught in a flux where there is no past or future, only the present moment. Present moment where an infinite number of things demand our attention without our being able to pay enough attention to one of them.
For the American professor Maryanne Wolf, we are witnessing today the decline of “deep literacy1 » (deep literacy), namely the ability to read dense text and make sense of the ideas and concepts within it.
In Quebec, for example, one out of two people has difficulty reading a long text and making sense of the information it contains.2. In addition, approximately 53% of Quebecers have considerable difficulty reading and writing.3.
Deep literacy is not natural. We are not born with such a capacity. Rather, we acquire it during childhood and adolescence. And, to keep it, we must read throughout our lives.
It is a cultural creation of man. It is also closely linked to a crucial aspect of our culture: individualism. It is thanks to it that we develop an interior life and a personal conscience.
It is notably thanks to this solitary exercise that is reading that we acquire the ideas, beliefs and values which are specific to us and which distinguish us from other individuals.
Deep Literacy and Democracy
It is also through deep literacy that we learn the meaning of the abstract ideas on which society is based, such as the rule of law, freedom and democracy.
However, a society where the meaning of these ideas is no longer very well understood risks being less stable. Some may be less inclined to respect the authority of political institutions that are based on these ideas.
Others risk demanding simple solutions to complex problems by supporting authoritarian or populist leaders who pledge to fix everything with the wave of a magic wand.
The more difficult it will be to make sense of the world and events, the more we will try to make sense of the world and events, even if this meaning is incoherent, even absurd.
Moreover, a society where deep reading continues to decline could be tempted to adopt a less abstract mode of governance that would be embodied by an authoritarian personality.
This mode of governance would undoubtedly be hostile to liberalism, especially to the idea of individual freedom, and to democracy, especially to the idea that individuals freely choose who governs them and how they are governed.
Such a society is neither desirable nor desirable.
Deep literacy should not be a luxury that only an elite can acquire. Everyone should have equal opportunities to develop such a capacity, regardless of their social, economic, cultural, etc. status.
This is not only about our ability to make sense of the world, but about the stability of our democratic institutions.