As you probably already know, I read. In fact I read a lot about many different subjects. I read not only because of my profession, but for my own growth and learning. Reading was a habit that I acquired when I was very young that I have sustained over the years. What’s more, I try to place myself in contact with people who will inspire me to read more due to the depth and breadth of their own knowledge. These tend to be my most enjoyable interlocutors.
I offer the foregoing as a preface to the video below, which I consider an insightful treatment of what for many of us is an urgent topic. I have long been concerned that too many people lack the requisite knowledge to grapple with the profoundly complex challenges that we face as a species. The penchant towards increasingly simplistic ways of knowing and understanding reality have contributed to rampant ignorance, susceptibility to conspiracy theories, and even a deep-seated anti-intellectualism.
Lastly, like the great Amadou Hampâté Bâ, I do consider orality as a form of literacy, and recognize its historical import as both a form of knowledge and a mode of social practice. I fear that much was lost in the decline of the great oral traditions of our ancestors. Thus, more than literacy’s decline itself, my fear is already being realized–the widespread celebration of ignorance and its elevation as a way of being in society and the world. This is captured quite beautifully in a Yorùbá proverb which states, “Ọgbọ́n ní ńpẹ́ kó tó ran ẹni; wèrè kì í gbèé ran èèyàn; wèrè Ìbàdàn ló ran ará Ògbómọ̀ṣọ́,” that is, “Only wisdom takes a long time to rub off on others; imbecility does not take long to affect others; it is the imbecility plaguing Ibadan people that rubbed off on the people of Ògbómọ̀ṣọ́.” We are, I have long suspected, living in a time where the ascendance of idiocy will increasingly imperil our lives.
The rise of the post-literate society | DW News https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6t-BBQ8fUQ