The death of text.

[eppur_se_muova]

67. I noticed a while back how often people are declaiming a need to "express themselves" while at the same time ...

... we are slowly becoming less and less literate and less sophisticated in our language -- everything is reduced to a meme or a monosyllable -- I think the frustration some people feel about not being able to express themselves may stem from these trends.

Of course, some people have no legacy of education in their families, and especially not those for whom it was forcibly denied (I still think about John Lewis telling the story of his father visiting the Capitol (IIRC) with his son, the new Congressman from GA, and remarking that he wondered what HE could have accomplished, if he had only had the chance ... whole generations denied opportunity). But there are some parts of our culture (do I need quotes around that ?) where people can become outrageously rich without ever having the benefit of a full, broad and deep education, where talent can overwhelm obstacles as not in other fields -- music, sports, film, TV, and other entertainments being the most obvious. When AAs were barred from so many fields, they were "allowed" to succeed in show business in front of white audiences because it seemed like harmless entertainment, and it really was exceptionally entertaining at times (hey, jazz fan here) even though it could also be demeaning, and yeah of course white "managers" had to get their cut, which was seldom even honestly reported to the "talent". Things have gotten incrementally better for Blacks and other minorities, once pretty much outcasts in America, but we've never had the really fundamental change we need, even when the need was written into law. "First in family to get a college degree" is something to be proud of (almost true of me, too) but there are things you don't know -- attitudes as much as knowledge -- because they need to be passed on by your family, and your family never had the experience of dealing with say, the challenges of not blowing your big success. Or when you really need a lawyer, and how to find a good one (If you'rer not one of the monied, you probably have learned to distrust lawyers because they are often turned against you and your kind. To those with money, they're just a tool to be used when needed). Look at how many athletes, once featured on the Sports page every week, have gone bankrupt or worse.

I'd probably better stop here, before I start interpreting rap (which is actually not a single monolithic thing, anyway) and how it is IMHO both a result and a furtherance of the intellectual impoverishment of our society. Oh, and blogs ... and selfies ... and "reality" TV ... everyone feverishly trying to get their "message" out there without asking, with true deep critical thought, "what do I actually have that's worth sharing that widely, that isn't just something everyone else already has -- and do I have the tools to formulate a worthwhile message based on that ?". Meh. Nope, too many big words (remember monosyllables, um, Dude ?), too much thinking. tl/dr, dt. Don't think, do, and before you know it you can't think your way out of a simple problem for lack of practice in actual thinking.Writing is just thinking with a pencil, and we've regressed to "writing" with minimalist images -- what linguists label as "ideographs", which preceded the more powerful concept of alphabets. Or maybe "idiographs", lacking broader meaning.