Reading is not enough…

current events, Thoughts, , , 25 Comments

Our 2 1/2 year old granddaughter can read. On a recent visit, her older cousin carried her about the house testing her skills with random bottles and things she would not have seen before. She read them all, with total nonchalance while we looked on amazed.

One thing she read was a Christmas greeting: May all your days be merry and bright. It occurred to me that she could not possibly know what that meant. Reading is one thing; understanding is another.

Literacy – the ability to derive comprehensive meaning through reading or writing – seems to be lacking in our present culture. The ability to question with discernment, read between the lines, and pursue deeper understanding is a lost art in the this world of immediate answers. Critical thinking is essential to determining truth in this era of misinformation.

I did a little experiment with social media, researching different perspectives. What fascinated me is that each side of an issue believes themselves to be unequivocally correct. All this time that we are spending pointing fingers does not address the underlying issue: that we are each being fed material that locks us into our righteousness. We are all equally, and not culpably, right – according to the algorithms that follow us.

Like the 2 1/2 year old, basking in the admiration of her elders, we are children, smug in our viewpoints, never needing to look beyond what makes us feel heard and seen. If we are ever going to be able to unite on anything, we need to drop the facade and think.

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Permission to write, paint, and imagine are the gifts I gave myself when chronic illness hit - a fair exchange: being for doing. Relevance is an attitude. Humour essential.

25 thoughts on “Reading is not enough…”

  3. You are right of course. The news used to be the news, but now it’s all tailored to a particular audience and point of view. It’s impossible to agree with any person on everything, but we demand purity. (K)

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  5. I read some things this morning addressing this issue. Here is one snippet:
    “‘Self-righteousness is the conviction that one’s beliefs and behaviors are the most correct.’ People who exhibit self-righteousness see things as black and white—they tend to be closed-minded, inflexible, intolerant of ambiguity, and less likely to consider others’ opinions.” (Brene Brown “Atlas of the Heart”)

    Plenty of that going on!

    Also reading Daniel Kahneman’s “Thinking, Fast and Slow,” which has great stuff about mental biases and lazy thinking.

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  6. I have also noticed that people of opposite views will accuse the other side of not thinking critically. I think the foundation of individual values makes one gravitate to opinions that justify their own views. And let me say, your grand daughter sound pretty intelligent and probably has her grandmother’s smarts!😊

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    1. Well, I did hear that smarts are handed down through the females, lol. Seriously, it is such a problem. I encountered a woman who had no idea that anyone’s rights were being violated. She had not seen anything to the contrary.

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  7. Wow!
    But I so agree with you, VJ! My husband and I were discussing this the other day. Being literate is one thing but education teaches us discernment. We so rely on our devices for news, information and the algorithm shows what we want to see and that’s the reason we are so smug refusing to believe that there could be another side to the argument. Critical thinking has left the room.

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