In Kaestle’s “The History of Literacy” essay, he discusses the different opinions of literacy that scholars hold. Kaestle mentions that Cremin believes that “literacy is a liberating skill and enlightening skill” (14) in that it allows individuals to think more objectively with logic and reason. Others, including Soltow, Stevens, and Graff, believe that literacy can be seen as “an ideology of middle-class schooling” (14) in that what one reads and is taught is influenced by societal factors and can be limiting to how one thinks.
In my opinion, I lean toward the latter concept of literacy. I definitely agree that literacy gives individuals, especially creative writers and novelists, the ability to create and share radical ideas that influence the masses, and in this way be enlightening. However, it is rare that these instances are so cut-and-dry. Instead, writers that present such a threat to the status-quo often suffer for it. We constantly hear of the banned or burned books today and wonder why people of the past were so closed-minded. When I stop to consider my assigned high school readings, many of the authors look the same, with similar ideologies. These are instilled in us as works of classic literature that so happen to conform to Western ideology. It is difficult for me to think of literacy as a predominantly “liberating” skill when authors and their potential audiences have so often been restrained by subjective standards of good and bad writing.
