I mean it; we will lose the ability to write either cursive or block letters.

When I was in college…and that was over forty years ago; I had a class taught in an auditorium that had over 200 students…one of those 101 something classes. The first few classes everyone attended, but as time went on I noticed that there were fewer and fewer and one day I noticed that there were only five people other than myself. I was taking notes as the professor gave his lecture but the others weren’t…they had a tape recorder! What was going on is simply this: ten or more got together, bought a tape recorder and would send in someone to record the lecture. This made it possible for the rest to sleep in past 8:00 am.

I thought at the time that technology was wonderful…I was taking notes like a dummy while most of the class was in the arms of Morpheus. But wait, what would happen if the tape recorder malfunctioned?...why they would be shit out of luck.

I asked myself if this was not a presage of things to come…like the disappearance of the telegraph with the advent of the telephone.

After reading a post in http://bluetruckredstate.blogspot.com/ titled “Reading and Writing, Who Needs 'Em? I began to think about it because it has never occurred to me that this could actually happen.

Think about it for a moment…how much long-hand writing do we actually do each day? How much more do we type or enter into some new-fangled gadget (most of which I still don’t understand or can operate) I am sure that your answer would be that you use your long-hand, cursive writing hardly at all. When I think that I actually learned to type on an old Remington manual typewriter…that is why I castigate the keyboard today with assertive, forceful strokes on the keyboard with my fingers…because when the electric typewriter arrived it only needed a light touch…boy did I make typos then…but, now it is the computer…I have been struggling with it for years now and I am at best functional.

A friend jokingly tells me that they are going to pull me into the 21^st century by the hair whether I like it or not; but I apologize for my reluctance because I still have that image of Hal the computer from the film “2001 A Space Odyssey”

It also reminds us that the process of democratization has also brought with it a great deal of complacency, conformity and mediocrity. It is no longer necessary in our society to be smart, well read, well-informed or even inquisitive…after all, it is there at your fingertips…the computer is a window to the world…a library branch operating 24 hrs a day right on your desk top. Would we see the decimation of public libraries as well? That is also a certainty because as municipalities and government in general find funds hard to get…the first things to go in their priority list are the arts and education; the military of course one of the last.

Americans have been notorious for their ignorance in the past about history and geography, this is becoming even more acute with this new attitude that rejects all that is academic, intellectual and that makes someone singularly smart or gifted. It is what I call the demise of meritocracy.

It is this rejection of the concept of making yourself better, more educated, well informed that has brought us some odious movements like the hippies in the 60’s (which I was a part of) and the Tea Party of today. Most of these people today don’t have a clue, don’t know their asshole from a hole in the ground…contrasting with the hippie movement which did place a lot of importance on literature, philosophy and the arts…even though they were hell-bent on changing it.

Is it then surprising that we had a George W. Bush as our President and the likes of Sarah Palin still puttering about trying to push their askew and mediocre ideology on the rest of us?

Thank you Russ Manley for Blue Truck Red State

PHOTO SOURCE: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0b/2001Style_B.jpg