Jeffrey C. Long

Two days ago I was reading “Politics” by Ralph Waldo Emerson. It was remarkably thought provoking, speaking well to the sea change going on in American politics. But the grammar and vocabulary made it a struggle to read. I’m fairly literate. But it was hard to read.

It got me wondering, “who was reading this back then? Was the standard of literacy measured by sentence length, grammar and vocabulary significantly higher then?” My suspicion is that it wasn’t. Without researching it (I’m at the pool) I believe that there was a huge disparity between a small population that was literate and even scholarly and the majority whose reading level was lower.

Which means, that the people exposed to the ideas of Emerson were small.

Our day is remarkably different. Literacy is up, though one could argue that understanding isn’t. But those who trade in ideas, Malcolm Gladwell, Chris Anderson, Kevin Kelly are accessible to most people. And they are all writing about the dynamics of social change in our present-future world. Anyone can read “The Tipping point,” “The Long Tail,” “The Cluetrain Manifesto,” and “Smart Mobs,” and be informed about social change in a way that only a few could take advantage of during Emerson’s day.

The question is: Will this make a difference. Will people take advantage of the opportunity. We live in an era of immense change. Democracy works best when its citizens are informed. And we have access to more information then ever before.

My invitation is this: that each of us stretches our mind and continues to learn. The future demands that we do. If we don’t, we will find ourselves back in Emerson’s day when decisions were made by the literate elite and we will lose the opportunity to have a voice in the creation a new future.