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Nadin, Mihai, 1938-

"The Civilization of Illiteracy"

Our entire
activity becomes faster, more precise, more segmented, more
distributed, more complex. This activity is subordinated to a
multi-valued logic of efficiency, not to dualistic inferences or
truth or falsehood.
Some might read into the argument made so far a vote against the
many kinds of activists of this day and age: the ecologists who
warn of damage inflicted on the environment; Malthusians
tireless in warning of upcoming famine; the zero-population-
growth movement, etc. Some might read here a vote for
technocracy, for the advocates of limitless growth, the
optimists of despair, or the miracle planners (free marketers,
messianic ideologists, etc.). None is the case. Rather, I submit
for examination a model for understanding and action that takes
into account the complexity of the problem instead of explaining
complexities away and working, as literacy taught us to, on
simplified models. Mapping out the terrain of the descriptive
level of the relation between language and work under current
pragmatic circumstances will assist in the attempt to plot, in
some meaningful detail, the position so far described.
Literacy and Education
Education and literacy are intimately related. One seems
impossible without the other. Nevertheless, there was education
before the written word. And there is education that does not
rely on literacy, or at least not exclusively. With this in mind,
let us focus, in these preliminary words, on what brought
literacy into education, and on the consequences of their
reciprocal relation.


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