We will not deal with the problems of the present (and the future conceived in it) if we do not become literate in new ways.
The very notion of ‘literacy’ is more than ripe for change. Functional typographic literacy - reading and writing - are now only the most basic technical condition for functioning in the modern world, but far from sufficient.Generic typographic literacy allows us basic communication in a mediated world of screen relationships, but it does not offer us - at least not by itself, without instrumentalized application - wisdom and protection, development and good decisions, individually and collectively. For that, we need new types of literacy, from an early age, at the socio-systemic level. Typographic literacy, as prof. In her legendary book ‘Having Fun to the Death’, Neil Postman lost the battle with television and, now, the internet.
What new literacy do we need now, what is the matrix of new education? There is a lot of debate on this topic. My contribution, in the way it is shaped here, is inspired by existing considerations, but it packs them here in a slightly (much) different way. I have not yet seen anyone talk about these new literacy through these new interconnections, as the architecture for a new set of ‘scaffolds’ around our societies, to stop repeating the mistakes of the past - but also the present
The educational system of the 20th century was designed for the industrial, mass, adoption of relatively inaccessible knowledge, mostly defined as a sea of facts. They were not easy to find at the time if they were not concentrated in special books, 'textbooks', and - since the human race does not like to think and actively strives to add facts to its cognitive repertoire - in special physical spaces - known as ‘school’ and ‘classroom’ - and in special time intervals known as ‘classes’. And teacher training was subordinate to that.
Many of us do not know that industrial education as we know it today was designed in America at the beginning of the last century out of the need to discipline the predominantly rural population and prepare it for work in city factories. The conveyor belt requires standardization, synchronization, routine. It is an ant ideology, based primarily on conditioned behavior through repetition, punishment, and reward. ‘Behavioral psychology’ by Pavlov and Skinner in practice. That is why we have a bell for the beginning and end of the class: the sound signal is the preparation for work in the factory, the symbol of the beginning and end of the ‘shift’ and the sound stimulus of collective synchronization. In such a system, individuality is pushed aside.
Averageness - more precisely, the need to be a little better than her, but not too much - has become the main measure of success. Otherwise, the system does not know what to do with exceptions. Exceptions, for better or worse, are a problem in the smooth running of the industrial process, an ‘abnormality’ that is mostly removed. The average is the law and the main measure of success. That's how we reward ourselves. Nowadays, even in highly developed countries such as Britain, children with strong talents are treated as children with ‘special needs’. Because, objectively, they have them, but not in the way it is usually defined. So the system doesn't know what to do with them. The consequences are catastrophic for all of us.
The school system as we know it is the last legacy of civilization - that is, given the enormous benefits it has brought to humanity - which has not undergone an ideological-technological transformation. The classroom is the latest modern archaeological artifact. It took a global epidemic that locked us in our homes to make us aware that it could be done differently. It can also be a chance for an overall re-examination of the very notion of education.
Post-industrial society, often summarized in the concept of "4. industrial revolution" , requires new types of literacy, for new forms of organizing society and living. Here I will now depart from the usual dimensions of education that are often mentioned as key to this new civilization paradigm, although they are encompassed by my approach. I think our task is much bigger than just transforming the economy. We have to change ourselves, as social and political beings, if we want to survive on this planet (before we even think of moving to others).
We also need new literacy because of the need to stop repeating mistakes from the past and the present. It is tragic how bad we are as citizens and how great consumers we are! We choose the wrong people to lead us, for the wrong reasons, because of wrong assessments of what matters, driven by various functional illiteracies that are actively stimulated, even created, by modern political-economic-media elites, in whose interest it is to remain like this as we are now. We are easily managed because of that. Any system that calls itself ‘progressive’ must pay close attention to this new civilization curriculum. This new great enlightenment struggle must have the following types of literacy in its focus
Archetypal / narrative literacy
In short: storytelling is the most powerful technology that the human race has invented because it pushes us in the most powerful, individually and collectively, in various directions. The story is a machine for controlling gravity: it can literally lift us to the stars, or plunge us into moral abysses. Ideologies, religions, economic systems, fashions, trends, entertainment, media… they are all just stories, narratives, certain ways of constructing, conceptualizing and mediating our reality, in order to influence our behavior. Most of these narratives have a certain ideological-commercial goal behind them.
It is critical for all of us, for our collective survival, to understand how narratives work and why we are evolutionarily programmed to react strongly to them. Why do we immerse ourselves in them so easily? One of the most bizarre facts of the modern world is that this, one of the key literacy of the modern age, is almost nowhere studied in an organized way. More precisely, storytelling courses are very common, but in a very commercially useful way: how to tell strong stories in order to influence people and earn money or fame in the process. But nowhere do we learn how to defend ourselves against strong narratives such as populism, conspiracy theories and various forms of propaganda, political or economic. This literacy is the antidote to almost all the manipulations that digital space has unleashed on the modern world. This whole dark theater of problems has only one thing in common: reliance on strong emotional narratives.
Archetypal stories are patterns, formulas: about the fight between good and evil, about 'us' and 'others', about an external enemy that threatens 'our way of life', about what a 'real hero' looks like ... They are all patterns for dealing with our collective anxieties, evolved and inherited over the millennia. Drama and conflict are in their essence, packed into a formula. Many anthropologists, from Vladimir Prop to Claude Levi-Strauss, have pointed to this formulaic nature of archetypal stories. The most famous among them in this regard is certainly the American anthropologist Joseph Campbell, who in 1949 created the most durable and probably most used formula of all, his famous book 'Hero with a Thousand Faces', which not only inspired George Lucas to finally shape' Wars star ', but also Hollywood in general for many other' blockbusters'.
This template is as easy to understand as it is powerful. Once we are aware of it, when it is part of our life training, it is easy to open the hood of a hot emotional topic and see a few simple structural buttons that skilled storytellers - and populists and propagandists of all kinds - press to get the expected reactions from us. If there is one subject that should be learned from an early age (not just as passive consumers of these narratives in commercial form), if there is a primary collective vaccination for a more constructive society, intellectual BCG against ideological tuberculosis, then it is narrative literacy.
It, of course, requires new staff in schools at all levels. Who would these new narrators of narrative spells be? This is a place for radical innovation. It is a space in which writers of political speeches and playwrights, writers and copywriters, directors and editors - narrators of all kinds - can find a new expression and mission of their social usefulness. Instead of naked and cynical exploitation of our narrative illiteracy, turning it only into "business" or "success", here is an opportunity for karmic great washing, for contribution to the collective good. New secular catechists, in the mission of demystifying mystification
So much from me for now, the sequel follows ...
Jako lijepo napisano i mnogo toga sam naućio o pismenosti kao i o nepismenosti.