Literacy is Existential

21 Jun, 2025

Literacy in the United States is often cited as a complaint. We hear that our population is uneducated, and literacy rates are lower than they once were. Others will tell you the statistics are purely a consequence of bad parenting. But how valid are these claims, and why should we care? Well, our literacy is absolutely worth concern, existential concern. I’ll give you three reasons why.

Firstly, if one's understanding of the the world around them is a function of our media, what would be the consequence of not being able to comprehend that very same media? How will they act in an intelligent way? How will they vote? How will they decipher misinformation from truth? In this way the media plays a crucial part in our understanding of the world. This doesn't just mean news outlets, but novels, philosophy, music, etc.

Second, most, if not all high income jobs require literacy. Low literacy means uneducated people. Uneducated people means lower income. Aside from being a clamp on upward economic mobility, less circulating money is simply worse for an economy. I’m not arguing that literacy improves GDP, even if that is the case. I’m arguing that literacy is indicative of educated people, and educated people improve GDP. ¹

Thirdly, beyond practicality, all people are owed literacy. This falls under our 14th amendment, the protection of the rights of public education. As we’ll see, this is mainly a regional issue. As you could predict, lower income states get lower funding, which results in lower literacy. You can only be told the information, often through a bad actor who has done the thinking for you. If you disagree with this premise, please understand that you wouldn’t be able to disagree if you were not literate.

Philosophy of Literacy

I want to make a more abstract argument. We have discussed why literacy is low, and how to fix it, but I really want to express why literacy is important. The Socratic philosophers argued that knowledge was a necessary part of virtue. In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle outlines the three parts of virtue: learning virtue, acting with virtue, and teaching virtue. Having knowledge as a fundament of virtue makes sense. How would one act right without knowing what right is? This, like Locke’s tabla rasa assumes humans to be intrinsically neither good nor bad. There are instead the product of their ethical education. But how about Hobbes, who’s infamous view of human nature was starkly negative. “Humans are driven by a perpetual and restless desire for power.” Well even for Hobbes, the goal is to supersede this primal tendency egoism, and achieve a state of civilized self moderation. With this as well, knowledge, and therefor literacy is essential. What’s left is the belief that humans are inherently good, like in the Buddhist tradition. Even assuming this, one would have to admit that humans can be decrypted or misguided into immorality. Therefore, to prevent this poisoning, you need literacy. We can see Aristotle mirrored in the Buddhist eight-fold path: “right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.” This conclusion places education and literacy as a vital part of a moral society. Even if you believe that morals can only be taught by God, this still requires education. The only coherent disagreement would have to come from an amoralist. So despite your view on human nature, education is always moral. This is an important conclusion, for some people see problems like literacy as a natural fact of life that doesn’t make sense to try and solve.

** Footnotes