Episode 506 – They Don’t Want You To Read…

Regarding the high state of literacy in the days of the Founding Fathers, I believe that the momentum of this carried on for quite some time–well into the 1800’s.

I have friend that told me he was gifted with a children’s book from the 1880’s. I wish I’d seen it. What amazed him about the book was its high level of literacy. He claimed that he needed the dictionary to read it. And this, for children.

I love words and tend toward being a spelling and grammar cop. When I get on various social media forums, it so rankles me to see just how illiterate people are now. It doesn’t just make me angry, but I find it terrifying as well.

Speaking of my concerns about words and literacy, one particular word makes me want to pull out my hair. That is the noun, ‘consumer‘ and the verb, ‘to consume.’ I can’t help but think that this is an outgrowth of the infamous, “useless eaters” phrase.

I suspect that this word, ‘consumer,’ was pinned on the chattel by way of the cynical and high minded New World Order boys. I especially hate it when the word ‘consumer’ is used as a replacement for the term, ‘human being.’

We are ensouled miracles of Creation, not ‘animated things that waste resources.’ (That, to my mind, is more a description of governments and corporations. I just love how they utterly pollute and plunder this planet and then try to pin the guilt on the common man.)

I am old now and I remember the flush of excitement at the first stirrings of social media. It was genuinely exciting back then. Imagine being able to speak in real time to anyone, anywhere in the world!

I jumped into AOL chat rooms back in the day. It was then that I began to see ‘text speak’ appear. The acronym, LOL appeared for me for the first time.

Imho, we are quite srsly mentally compromised by it all, lol.

The acronymization of phrases, the truncation of words…it all reminds me of Orwell’s Newspeak. I began feeling that way back then.

In my belief system, the ability to spell, to learn new words, to use proper grammar, refines the mind. But now, things are so bad that young people may actually shrug off the very idea refining the mind.

I hope this isn’t true. I’d love to see a renaissance of art, music, literature and a growing respect for self expression by way of the well-stated and well-written word.