Cognitive energy exchanged through networks and focused on
cooperative endeavors is part of what lies ahead as we
experience exponential growth on digital networks and fast
learning curves of efficient handling of their potential.
The past corresponds to a pragmatic framework well adapted to the
survival and development of humankind in the limited world of
direct encounters or limited mediations. In terms pertinent to a
civilization built around the notion of literacy, the current
lower levels of literacy can be seen as symptomatic of a crisis,
or even a breakdown. But what defines the new pragmatic context
is the shift from a literacy- centered model to one of multiple,
interconnected, and interconditioned, distributed literacies. It
is well justified to repeat that some of the most enlightened
minds overlook the pragmatics of bygone practice. Challenged,
confused, even scared by the change, they call for a journey to
the past: back to tradition, to discipline, to the ethics of our
forefathers, to old-time religion and the education that grew out
of it, to permanence, and hopefully to stability. Even those who
wholeheartedly espouse evolutionary and revolutionary models
seem to have a problem when it comes to literacy. All set to do
away with authority, they have no qualms about celebrating the
imperialism of the written word. Other minds confess to
difficulties in coping with a present so promising and, at the
same time, so confusing in its structural contradictions.
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