Goolture, or The Twilight of Culture

Twenty years ago, a woman complained to me about her eleven year old daughter's teacher:

"Imagine, she was upset with T. [the woman's daughter] because she had never heard about Michelangelo... I mean... Did you know about Michelangelo when you were eleven years old?"

(I don't remember what I told her - probably the truth, for the truth never really hurts - but I can tell you: When I was eleven years old, I was able to name and visually recognise at least two of Michelangelo's sculptural works.)

Ten years ago, a young woman (barely three years younger than myself) - supposedly a film fan, mind you - replied: "Oh, I know nothing about that, that was waaaay before my time...!" when asked whether she liked Greta Garbo.

A few months ago, I saw a news item purporting that some high school students (in the USA, I believe) thought Adolf Hitler was a football coach.
(I hope they got the national team right, if nothing else.)

And today, as I visited one of my favourite websites I saw this entry:

In 1793, two years after publishing his translation of Homer, William Cowper received this letter from 12-year-old Thomas Hayley, pointing out its defects:

Read the rest of it here.


Of course, the likes of young Master Thomas Hayley were exceptional even in those times.
But there is little doubt that general education has fallen to appallingly low levels in the past few decades, while functional illiteracy seems to be rampant.
(About functional illiteracy being a social construct, read here. Some, in fact, speak of three forms of illiteracy: functional, cultural and moral.)

And what's even more mind-boggling, it has done so in an age when there is an unprecedented variety and accessibility of learning resources.

A paradox?

No, not really.
There is in the human being a certain tendency towards "economy" that makes us prefer the path of least resistance. And when the paths are smoothed out and made widely available, as they are now, you get a highway to social, cultural, yes, even moral entropy.

In fact, it could be argued that the very resources that were supposed to facilitate learning and make it accessible as never before (such as Wikipedia and, most notably, Google) in fact contribute to the long-term downfall of education and culture - or, as the vox populi likes to say, to the "dumbing down" of the world.

You see, culture (as a catalyst for progress) cannot thrive on mediocrity - and we live in the empire of mediocrity, fuelled by the likes of Wikipedia (as noble-minded as its original purpose was), not to mention the ever-proliferating forums on all sorts of subjects where everyone is afforded a say.
(Everyone having a say is not the problem, of course: the problem is that such forums tend to level out the contributions of each of the participants, regardless of their age or level of education. "Popular" contributors are no longer those who really know the most about any given subject, but those whose discourse - I have to call it by some name - sounds the most appealing to most of the other forum participants.
Even formerly high-brow news outlets, such as major newspapers (not tabloids), are fuelling this phenomenon, by having succumbed to the recent frenzy of "empowerment" of the disgruntled and the semi-literate by means of rating other people's comments; now, even their readers can rate other people's written thoughts, and can do so disregarding their objective quality or the lack thereof.)

And so, we have arrived to a culture where trivial and error-ridden books on all sorts of "codes" can become best-sellers, and grammar is considered an obsolete hindrance to "expression".

Is this what the Thomas Hayleys of yesteryear went to school for and struggled through their Latin, English, mathematics, ancient Greek, solfeggio, physics, French lessons for?

Is this what Giordano Bruno was burnt for? 

Is this what women - not only Elena Cornaro but many other, less lucky women - and later people of "undesirable" skin colour or social condition had to endure public shame and threats for, when they wanted to access higher learning?

Oh right. Who cares. That was before our time.

Google's Goggles ogling at you

Just when you thought that typing for information (instead of opening a book, let alone going to mysterious places like the one featured in the titillating intro to our last post) without even having to care about proper spelling anymore was the non plus ultra in accessing information, it turns out Google has anticipated the ultimate whim and desire of the semi-literate - but doesn't it always? - and is now about to offer a word-free search:

Google Goggles

Cool, huh?

Now ask yourself: who, except maybe people who for some objective and particularly painful reason really cannot use words in their search, would ever need that?

The answer: in time, and thanks to Google (among other pillars of our culture and society), pretty much everybody.

Google: the dumbed-down machine

Google may be the nro. 1 search engine in the WWW world, but that doesn't mean it's getting any smarter.
(N.B. Speed and an ever increasing number of "conveniences" do NOT equal smart).

After having noticed, a while ago, that it keeps pushing all sorts of "alternate" spellings, treating you as a potentially dumb creature who cannot spell (and, honestly, who could blame them...?) and thereby forcing you to use quotation marks around single words, I now discovered it doesn't obey the - (= exclude) command anymore.
For example: tonight, I tried to find pages containing a number of specific words (relating to magic), but knowing the words in question were likely to appear on pages discussing games and/or Harry Potter, I took care to exclude any pages that contain references to games and/or Harry Potter. I did it the usual google-way I had used countless times in the past ten years or so: I put the - (minus) command before the undesired terms. Like this: -game, -games, -potter.

Guess what? It didn't work. In fact, the terms game, games, Harry, Potter were displayed in BOLD within the search results.

I know what you're probably thinking: that I somehow made a mistake and did not include the proper command. I don't blame you. Even though I have used such commands countless times before, I thought so too. So I checked, rechecked, (re)checked again, rewrote the search terms... nope. I am being served games and Harry Potter (in bold!) whether I want it or not. In order to exclude the unwanted terms, I had to use the special "advanced search" page. (There it worked.)

If you ask me, the secret of Google's success is that it keeps closely in touch with the ever-changing "times".

Does that mean, for example, that it keeps track of the needs of those who search for information in "minor" (please, don't be a google - note the quotation marks! :) languages, trying to adjust itself to their specific lingustic requirements, thereby improving their search experience and thus promoting the democratic ideal of knowledge accessibility for all?

No. It means that it is adjusting itself solely and exclusively to the "special needs" of those who can't spell. Worse than that: my latest experience - having my express commands flatly disregarded - makes me think that Google is striving to establish itself as an electronic to-go-pundit among those who also can't think for themselves. Now that's a mighty stride to take... alas, the direction is all wrong.

And yes, there seem to be myriads of illiterate, unthinking citizens around who might really need a hand or two to put 2 and 2 together.

It's blatantly neglecting the others -those who can spell AND think for themselves, and in more than one (even more than five or six) language at that - what I find objectionable and, to a certain degree, even morally corrupt. It smacks of fascist anti-intellectualism and/or disregarding all but the more muscular thugs of the international socio-political arena.
(If it weren't so, don't you think their customer service would actually be a service - not some anonymous and unresponsive machine?)

If you understand French, you may be interested in this 50-minute documentary called Google: the Thinking Machine.

It's a catchy title for a piece of journalistic work, I suppose (I should know, I have spewed quite a few pieces myself)... even if it does make you suspect that their next motto might be something along the lines of "let us do your thinking for you" or "we think, so you don't have to"...

But beyond the smart facade, there is little to substantiate the lofty claim.

Then again... the same goes for most of the current educational systems (both formal and informal), it seems. Poor use of language and even functional illiteracy have become so prevalent that they are fast affirming themselves as a sort of norm, even.

Learn to read, people. I mean, proper books. It's the only way to learn how to write properly.
And keep reading. And reading and reading.
Fahrenheit 451 may be coming to a neighbourhood near you.


P.S.

Ha! I just noticed: I used "google" as a noun.
Now, that must be a first... ;)



EDIT (10. II. 2010)

See also Google's Goggles ogling at you.
You might also like: Going, Goeing... gone.