askchapo

Been seeing more and more evidence that mass literacy is both massively diminished compared to the 20th century and accelerating in its decline across the world, especially in relatively highly educated countries. This problem is obviously much more severe amongst the working class than others, as historically tends to be the case.

If we want the masses to get to grips with a communist understanding of the world, which requires a lot of reading and discussion of text, surely this is an issue we need to grapple with. Current political education initiatives usually bring together smaller, highly-literate (typically university educated) groups of people, which tend to remain insular and rarely seem to engage with the broader working class. I am convinced that a significant barrier to mass political education is that so many "literate" people are unable to read a simple paragraph.

How do we rectify this situation? It seems historically unique because in the past, illiterate people had no illusions about the fact that they couldn't read and were enthusiastic about learning (at least, in general). Nowadays, I can imagine that most people would not view their literacy as something that needs to be improved, and many will even react with hostility to such a suggestion.

What's the correct approach? Do we need to emphasise the practical rewards that those who engage with theoretical texts benefit from? Take a direct approach and offer reading comprehension sessions? Interested to hear what others think.