I don't mean to be snarky here. I am honestly just trying to put these issues in context by pointing out that if you believe today's "uneducated" people being able to vote is "scary", then you should take a gander at the average level of education of voters in 1960. Even fewer college grads, even fewer high school grads, even MORE people that we would today term "dropout". Additionally, the further back that you go timewise, the more poorly educated the populace was.
I'm just saying that if you believe it to be bad today, then you would have certainly believed it to have been much worse in the 50's or 60's before the protocols for avoiding certain types of war had been fully established and implemented.
But we, as mankind, survived. And I think it's fair to say that we, as mankind, thrived.
There is a lot of negative information out there about the world today, and it can be demoralizing. But it's not about how many negative things happen to you, or your nation, or your world. It's more about our reactions to these things.
In this particular instance for example, do you say... "Hey... let's educate more people!" ?
Or do you say "Hey... let's take away the right to vote!" ?
It's not really what happened to you that determines your future... it's your reaction to it that determines your future.
The current estimate is 14% - and it hasn't changed for a decade.
The disparity makes me wonder if the figures are right, but it's nearly impossible to find reliable research on literacy in the US.
You'd think it would be assessed annually, but it isn't. The NAAL data is the most recent definitive survey, and that was done in 2003. I can find one survey since, but the National Institute for Literacy which is quoted in it seems to have closed in 2010.
The fact that there seems to be so little federal interest in rigorously tracking literacy is even more amazing to me than the nominal rate.
I'm just saying that if you believe it to be bad today, then you would have certainly believed it to have been much worse in the 50's or 60's before the protocols for avoiding certain types of war had been fully established and implemented.
But we, as mankind, survived. And I think it's fair to say that we, as mankind, thrived.
There is a lot of negative information out there about the world today, and it can be demoralizing. But it's not about how many negative things happen to you, or your nation, or your world. It's more about our reactions to these things.
In this particular instance for example, do you say... "Hey... let's educate more people!" ?
Or do you say "Hey... let's take away the right to vote!" ?
It's not really what happened to you that determines your future... it's your reaction to it that determines your future.