At the DRH conference yesterday we heard a paper from William Kilbride, Assistant Director of the AHDS Archaeology Data Service at the University of York. His talk was called 'How to become illiterate' and made a simple but thought-provoking point. He is a specialist on the laity and the clergy in the Anglo-Saxon period and he is also very knowledgeable about the internet - he set up the first British online archaeology project in 1994.
The Anglo-Saxon period, he told us, saw the rise of clerical literacy - increasing numbers of monks and nuns learned to read and write. The result of this, he claimed, was the invention of lay illiteracy.
An interesting point. In a society where nobody could read or write, illiteracy was not a mark of inferiority. But in a society where *some* people can read and write, with all the advantages such expertise naturally brings, illiteracy suddenly is an issue.
He further pointed out that even when everyone can read and write, what they consume then falls under scrutiny, so that we see sanctioned and acceptable kinds of literacy, and unsanctioned unacceptable kinds of literacy. An obvious example might be, say, the difference between a consumer of a broad range of literatures and one who only reads Hello magazine.
His point was that today, now that technology has become part of social practice, the notion of lay illiteracy has been re-invented, only this time the literate theocracy are people like us, the readers and writers of this blog, and the illiterates are those who cannot keep up with, or have access to, such technology.
Further, one might say that even within those who are all able to read and write online there still remain sanctioned and unsanctioned levels of technological literacy. (I would be interested to hear views on what these could be.)
His message was addressed, not to the whole world, but to the Humanities academic community, and expressed his frustration with the reluctance of many Humanities scholars to engage with technology, but it is pertinent to the wider community too. Finally, he addressed the title of his paper.
'How to become illiterate'? Simple, he said. Don't do anything. Don't find out how to use the web, don't learn about blogs and wikis, don't try to understand search engines etc etc. Don't do anything, and you too will be on a par with the laity in Anglo-Saxon England who were unable to read and write - you will be functionally illiterate in a technological world.
ps:
Some of us staying on campus here in John Creed hall are experiencing odd dreams, rattling door handles, and a locked door that has no lock. We're beginning to wonder whether the building is haunted... yet another kind of transliteracy...
WDL is a collaborative transdisciplinary blog about the impact of digital technologies upon writing and lived experience. We talk about writing and reading in the context of 'new and old' media, transliteracy, craft, art, process and practice, social networks, cooperation and collaboration, narrative and memory, human computer interaction, imagination, nature, mind, body, and spirit.
