Faking Cultural Literacy Summary

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We all fake cultural literacy, but that isn’t anything new. In an article published by the New York Times, Karl Taro Greenfeld argues that due to all the new forms of communication and media we have all begun to fake cultural literacy. His article was aptly titled “Faking Cultural Literacy”, a bold statement coming from a person whose job is to not do so and providing a source of information. People have been faking cultural literacy ever since people began to gossip and share opinions. The idea that only just after the recent social media boom that we started slacking off on learning the details of stories is absurd. For as long as people have talked to each other about common events we have always tried to find out other people’s opinions and roll with that as our views. Greenfeld has not made a groundbreaking observation that we have suddenly stopped being educated on current events. He has simply noticed a …show more content…

But what he fails to see is that humanity has always been infamously lazy. He even stated that when he was in school that he used Cliff Notes to write a paper on “A Tale of Two Cities” while never actually reading the book (Greenfeld.) Humans might be the smartest species on the planet, but that is because our brains consume a lot of energy. Naturally, we don’t want to try to over think a problem if we don’t have to. If someone has figured out a solution to a problem it would be immediately beneficial for us to copy them instead of reinventing the wheel, but this also is the case with social interactions. Instead of hearing about a current issue and deciding to research it, do critical thinking, and formulate an opinion it is much easier to just ask someone what they think and why and just have that be our own opinion and reasons. We haven’t just started faking cultural literacy, we have always been doing so. It is just easier to do today than it was 100 years

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