I read recently that at least 20% of the American adult population is illiterate. Functional illiteracy is responsible for a lot of this statistic. You have met the functionally illiterate before, and probably interacted with them as peers or even colleagues. They can write their own names, basic sentences, and things like this. But they are severely stunted in the ability to comprehend complex texts. Another statistic tells me that most American adults cannot read above a sixth-grade reading level, or so. For those who promote lofty humanist ideals about the brotherhood of man, such numbers may give cause for reflection. A core American conceit is viewpoint or content neutrality -- in law, the position that the state should apply the same standards to all speech in determining its protection under the First Amendment. This, to me, is essentially pablum. Whether one agrees or disagrees is beside the point. This is part of our civil religion. And I am happy for it, if only owing to entirely selfish reasons. I am happy for my speech, which is often unpopular, to be treated the same for legal purposes as that of any other similarly situated person. A more important form of this idea lies in the social realm. That every viewpoint is worth considering, and every person has something valuable to say simply by virtue of having a viewpoint to express. In the abstract, it strikes at many other American conceits which most of us indulge in from time to time. But I do find the idea rather fanciful. Am I to pretend that those 20% of Americans who could not, even if they tried, sufficiently read and comprehend complex texts, are just as intelligent as any other person? That their ideas necessarily deserve to be seriously considered? In fact, I would find this condescending. I would be treating those adults as if they were children. And so the "free marketplace" of ideas in a social sense is, to me, totally vacuous. In a Kantian sense, it is also cruel towards those individuals. Of course, this is to say nothing of many boring, and dry, and often hackneyed explanations for the feeble state of American intellectual development. It strikes me that no level of material or social deprivation, such that it exists in modern age America, can explain why ancient societies produced such great works of literature that modern societies are increasingly incapable of reading. Is it a lack of access to technology? They wrote on papyri and even earlier on clay tablets using reeds. Is it funding? We have "funded more education" than one can possibly imagine -- and with nary a result. Not enough books? Books are free. Not just physical books -- books of all kinds. Audiobooks, ebooks, braille books. People quite literally give them away. Then what is it? I don't know. I really don't. Of course, many of our peer countries have similar problems. But a look at our own society, with its fetid, insubstantial "discourse" and pure reliance on cognitive dissonance as a strategy in important discussions, certainly indicates something about where this country is headed, and such comparisons in no way alleviate the obvious problem with our move to a post-literate age. Who to point the finger at? It would be easy, and I suppose perfectly noble, to say "us" -- but I, as somebody with absolutely zero influence over anything important, wish to disassociate myself from such a sentiment entirely. I am not responsible, either in whole or in part. I am simply an observer. And from the outside looking in, it doesn't look good.