They say language is alive, ever-changing to meet new social needs. If that is true, today it is on life support. Sometimes a post needs a setup; an intro. Not this one. Our language and relationship to it tells me intelligence and modern society are moving in the wrong direction. So, yeah. That’s it.
Language is important. The fact that, at least a generation ago, the overwhelming majority of people in the first world were literate was a miracle of civilization. Through most of the 1800s, global illiteracy exceeded 80%. The US led the charge in Western literacy, with men exceeding 80% of the population being literate, and women 50%. England at this time was still just over 50%. Nordic countries touted the highest percentage of their population being literate over this period, reaching the 85% mark as early as 1750.
The Issue: WE ARE GOING BACKWARDS
As of 2022, the US reports that over 20% of the population is functionally illiterate. This is before COVID and ed tech had a chance to wreck the education system. The numbers are not out yet, but I would guess it has been growing.
This is not really an immigration issue either; while foreign-born individuals naturally have a higher rate of English illiteracy, it is not as wide as you would think. 15% of native and 34% foreign-born, but let’s not forget, most aren’t illiterate, they just aren’t literate in English. The white population ranks higher in this subset anyway!
No, people in the modern West simply can no longer communicate effectively. Being able to read and write demonstrates a basic understanding and relationship with words, necessary for giving and receiving information. This loosening grip on our language has dramatic effects on how we understand information that is presented to us. It helps us determine fact from fiction and reason through decisions. Understanding language in a litigious world, full of terms and conditions, is a primary line of defense against predatory practices. It also helps us understand the complexities of modern life and the interconnected systems we are forced to participate in by allowing us to ask the right questions and understand the answers. Literacy is not a luxury or prestige; it is a necessity, and starving people or yourself of it is akin to food insecurity.
The fact that we have allowed technology, entertainment, and politics to move our society backwards from the period of heightened intellectual competence is criminal. An uneducated population struggles to innovate, they are more prone to poverty, and cannot fully participate in a democratic society. They are destined to return to a lower class of person that requires the rules and wisdom to be told to them in story form, allowing for endless interpretation, embellishment, and deceit, with no recourse.
It isn’t the result of a class war, but the start of one.
The war on literacy is not top-down; it is bottom-up. Sure, public education is severely lacking, but no one is truly demanding excellence. No one votes for higher school budgets to staff schools with reasonably-paid, respected teachers. There is a pernicious narrative from those without children that their taxes shouldn’t go to other people’s children, whether it is in the form of education, school meals, or even food stamps. This population of childless adults is growing, nearing 50% of adults.
It is bad enough that society has little interest in childhood development, but even the parents aren’t investing. A heartbreaking study shows that only about 40% of parents read to their kids regularly. Worse, the study points out that one in five young boys is rarely or never read to. This is before they get into schools, where 60% of parents struggle to help their kids with homework. Mix this with large classrooms for teachers, relaxed graduation requirements, a decrease in teacher support from parents, and top it off with the complete dismantling of higher education in rhetoric and practice, and most kids don’t have a shot at pulling themselves up.
This is how class systems begin. It is an old trope of uneducated parents discouraging education for the ignorant fear of their children becoming smarter than they are, but it is accurate. Same as shaming nerds for being smart. This fear and mistreatment breeds a special kind of resentment where the intelligent feel superior intellectually, misunderstood, and under threat from the mouthbreathing masses, and those not as studious fear the physically underwhelming, making them look bad with their big heads and fancy words when they can’t do a hard day’s labor. They separate into two entirely different worlds with two sets of rules, forever at odds. These two worlds have different means, goals, habits, ethos, morals, and politics. They have different definitions of success and different ideas of right and wrong. They have a team and only play for their side to win, if not explicitly, subconsciously.
How do I know it is a decline? It isn’t just the statistics; it is the celebration
We celebrate this ignorance of our language. Whether it is exalting dialects that embrace misuse of the common language, the drastic increase in buzzwords, embracing text-speak, or pointing out the antiquity of good handwriting, society at large celebrates the dumbing down of our literary aptitude. It can be as innocent as exclusively choosing audiobooks until you realize that you forgot the benefits of reading a book beyond the story itself.
The technology to avoid using the literary parts of your brain is hailed at every turn, and it is killing our cognitive ability. This comes in the form of things like AI note-taking, so you don’t actually have to listen to people talk. Expecting short-format answers to questions versus reading entire or multiple articles to reach a deeper understanding of the question and answer is extremely common. Asking ChatGPT to formulate your thoughts for that email is delegating every part of thought and communication. Even overusing spelling and grammar functions decreases our aptitude in these areas. We love to think we are literate through the tools we use every day, but in fact, we can’t be bothered to exercise our brains in that fashion.
While the technological tasks are one thing, our methods of communicating arguably have a larger impact on dumbing down language. Not texting, but social media. Social media allows language trends to spread far and fast, so where local dialects would spring up with their own unique slang and be geographically limited, now it can run wild and gain traction at a global scale.
The prime example that can’t be ignored is the “word of the year.” In 1990, the American Dialect Society (ADS) named its first “word of the year,” and since then, other literary authorities have added their own, and they are hitting all-time lows, with the Oxford-English Dictionary being the worst, in my opinion. Here is the list: 2022- Goblin Mode, 2023- Rizz, 2024- Brain Rot. Dictionary.com takes the cake with the step up from 2024’s “vibe-coding” nomination, and naming the word of the year for 2025 “67.” Let’s set aside that it is a number for a second and look at the fact that it has spent a year in obscurity when it came to what it meant before landing on basically “so-so.” It’s alleged origins from a rap song that even the artist didn’t associate with this meaning. The fact is that we are no longer expanding the vocabulary in popular society, but dumbing it down to an inside joke that no one is actually in on.
Sure, this seems inconsequential and all in good fun, but when it becomes commonplace to speak in jargon that has little solidified meaning, our thoughts follow suit. We all have dealt with the embarrassment of using the wrong word in conversation, like “inconceivable” from The Princess Bride (if that dates you and me), but at least we were trying, and we got a chance to learn from our mistakes, because people around us would raise an eyebrow or point it out. That word, even if used incorrectly, carried a concrete and understood meaning. Removing the concrete nature of language that took thousands of years to enshrine descriptions of the tangible world and our emotions removes a sense of connection to those very things. Eventually, we speak only for show and think only for entertainment.
Those In Power Are Spiking The Punch
Everyone is having a great time playing with the written word and ignoring its power and importance. If you think that people at the top don’t see and understand this shift in language, you are sadly mistaken. An uninformed person is destined to fall prey to deceit of all forms.
SEO killed the internet as everything is written and read to drive an algorithm and ultimately sell something. These algorithms pick up on elementary-level sight words that drive clicks and purchases. Fine print got smaller, more verbose, and ever-present, taking away much-needed attention. Corporate jargon became exclusionary and a way to single out even the most experienced in the workforce. Content moves so fast that there has become a lack of credibility in nearly all content, from simple grammar errors in major publications on the rise to blatantly false information that takes longer to disprove than to propagate. Sadly, the idea of “if something gets said enough, it becomes true” appears to be the mantra running behind the keyboards of so-called journalists who are simply content creators or marketers at best. The intent of every word in public space is no longer to inform, but to sway opinion, preferably towards separating its audience from their money.
The worst is the politics. Language and politics have a very long history. From the ancient study of rhetoric to the propaganda of the twentieth century, those in power knew the power of persuasion through carefully crafted narratives and controlling language. Politicians learned how to communicate in the language of their audience to make them appear as if they were the same, when it was obviously not the case. What disappoints me the most is that no one even seems to try anymore. We all know the playbooks or can easily spot them. We know when we are being told half-truths and bold-faced lies, but we ignore them. Hell, sometimes even go along with them. When we simply accept lies, ignore fact-checking, and refuse to do our own research, we become complicit in the deceit and whatever follows.
Why Language is Important to Us All
Utilizing the literary parts of our brain is our responsibility as free people in society. This is why free speech is important, why education is important, and investing in children’s language development is critical to a future we actually want to live in.
I want to live in a world of smart people, where new things are invented, diplomacy happens, and fraud is detectable. I want to be able to converse with people around me about the weather and know that whoever I am talking to knows how the water cycle works. I want those around me to understand how the economy and money work enough to promote stability in their lives and achieve a modest level of success themselves. I want people to understand what informed care is and how to navigate our current medical care landscape. I also want to live in a world where citizens are savvy enough about how things work to understand what they are voting for beyond political talking points. All this requires a grasp and respect of language that facilitates understanding.
The ability to read and write stretches far beyond entertainment. It is the strongest way that humans have found to think critically. It helps us identify with each other far beyond simple appearance and spoken dialects. It adds depth to our relation to our social world.
Reading and writing for yourself and your benefit will take more time and mental horsepower, but it inserts your human self into the world. It will cost some productivity, but it will add to your capacity. Capacity for knowledge, connection, and creativity. So put pen to paper. Write something and proofread it. Leave in some errors if they aren’t critical. For all our sake, read. Encourage children to read. Use the uniquely imaginative parts of your mind to create your own images from the written word. Form your own thoughts, and remember that most of the information that you encounter is flawed.
We live in much too exciting times to simply go with the current, distracted by cheap and light entertainment. Never before has there been a better time to read, write, and think. It would be a shame to waste our future because we are too lazy to use our amazing minds.
With Care,
Reid Pierpoint