The Human Cost Of An Illiterate Society Kozol Summary

Summary of “The Human Cost of an Illiterate Society”

Throughout the writing The Human Cost of an Illiterate Society by Jonathan Kozol, Illiterate America, published in New York City 1985,  a question is brought to understanding that many American citizens haven’t worried or been concerned about asking themselves. What is it like to be illiterate? When we think of Illiterate-America, we often think of the votes that aren’t cast and of the un-informed decisions regarding who those said, are voting for. Jonathan Kozol brought to light some of the many problems that loom overhead one  without a written language.

For an illiterate adult, choice is abated in all aspects of life. Mr. Kozol gives accounts given from those without literation

who have to depend on spoken word everyday. The multiple accounts range from individuals not being able to communicate through the mail system, not being able to read street signs to locate themselves in emergency situations, and everywhere in between. Using emotion and sad realities, we realize through Kozol’s writing that without phonetics and understanding of written language, what you see is what you get. The information that is placed in front of those illiterate, is the information that is pressed into opinion and shaped into emotion not fact--the drive in which illiterate Americans have no choice but to operate on.
As the number of citizens who cannot read prescription instructions, do not understand health insurance plans, those who do not remember the contract that had to be recited to them verbally and now are six months behind on their rent grow, so does the darkness that hangs over the American dream and especially over our society that is “suffering with qualified concern but does not take those actions which its wealth and ingenuity would seemingly demand”(.