Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.19990118175430.00c1ab30@mail.monmouth.com> Date: Mon, 18 Jan 1999 17:54:30 -0500 From: Wilbur Streett <mailto:WStreett@MAIL.MONMOUTH.COM> Subject: Re: Unicef: one billion illiterates To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
At 06:37 PM 1/18/99 -0400, you wrote: >Wilbur wrote:
<snip> >
>I don't believe you have made your case: it's quite possible that 65% of
>the world's population doesnt know whats going on, and at the same time,
>that 16% are *literally* illiterate -- uable to read and write.
The statistics for the USA, the country with the highest literacy rate, is 1 out of 5 adults is illiterate. That's 20% right there. The statistics for the entire World that I've heard are 1 out of 3 are literate. I don't know the World's total population off hand, but I thought that there were a lot more than 1.5 Billion people on the planet.
>{ People don't starve because they can't read. People starve because they
>{ are hungry.
>{
> People starve for all sorts of reasons. The question of literacy
>speaks (writes?) to *how they might get out of a state of hunger. One can
>imagine a grand effort to 'regularize' the world, so the hoi polloi can
>get an allotment of grain and vegetables from the experts. Is that what
>you have in mind? I doubt it, but certainly 'solves' the 'problem.'
I currently believe that the major problem of starvation is one of distribution, not production or literacy. At least that's the best argument that I've heard so far.
> The value of literacy is not just to be able to read the directions on
>a label instead of asking your neighbor -- and (I hope!) you dont have to
>take my word for it ;-)
Well, I think that the value of Literacy in terms of "reading and writing" is often highly overrated. While the value of "Literacy" in terms of knowing what to do is buried in the campaign started by the scribes about 3,500 years ago.
Wilbur
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