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Nadin, Mihai, 1938-

"The Civilization of Illiteracy"

Its
content cannot be knowledge in general, since the varieties of
practical experiences cannot be emulated in school and college.
Within the pragmatic framework that made literacy possible, it
sufficed to know how an engine functioned in order to work with
different machines driven by engines. Literacy reflected
homogeneity and served those constituted as literate in
controlling the parameters within which deviations were
allowed. The post-industrial experience, based on an underlying
digital structure, is so heterogeneous that it is impossible to
cope with the many different instances of practical
requirements. The skills to orient us towards where to find what
we need become more important than the information shared.
Ownership of knowledge takes a back seat; what counts is access,
paralleled by a good understanding of the new nature of human
praxis focused on cognition. Education should, accordingly,
prepare people to handle information, or to direct it to
information processing devices. It has to help students develop
a propensity for understanding and explaining the variety in
which cognition, the raw material of digital engines, results
from our experiences.
The unity between the various paths we conceive in projecting our
own biological reality into the reality of the world housing us
and the result of our activity is characteristic of our mental
and emotional condition.


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