And here we ("we" as in contemporary Westerners) are trying to push literacy down the world's throat as the miracle cure for social unrest, poverty, violence and so on, and, even more interestingly, as the miracle push towards "development" and "progress". At least in the humanities, it would have been reasonable to expect a certain atheism by now in relation to the oh-so-worshiped notion of progress. It's so nineteenth century...
Of course, it is true that in the world of today, meaning in the social context that we create and maintain, not being equipped with literacy skills is a major drawback; the point was not to deny that. But we shouldn't forget that the context we choose to maintain at a certain point is highly volatile and the truths and "facts" we take for granted (like the intricate link between literacy and development in society or mental capability in the individual) can so easily change.
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But apart from this theoretical point I wanted to make, I can totally imagine myself back then, with the confident and somewhat distinguished attitude that a classy female smoker can arbor today in the grand hollywoodian setting, rolling my eyes at a certain someone who can read and write and looking condescendingly to him for being so vulgar... "No, you can't buy me a Ouzo [actually they didn't have that back then, so replace "Ouzo" with whatever else they drank in those days]... Girls like me don't even talk to boys like you...". Funny thought. Especially considering the contemporary Western (if not already globalized) sapiosexuality.
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