alt Hacker NewsVery interesting that it did so well. Although it did leave out the point that reading and interpreting documents could also be done by an expert in the first paragraph as well as the idea that not just words but language are used in technical communications by the various symbolic systems.
I think that sophisticated verbal communications can be learned by verbal means, and that the reading of literature is not essential. Non-literate cultures have maintained traditional folk songs, storytelling and epic poetry.
Corporate managers and salespeople are often highly verbal, but not necessarily highly literate. Consider how the written Response to an Request For Proposals is not enough for important opportunities, but must be simplified to a set of slides delivered by a silver-tonged senior salesperson. This provides a better match to the input characteristics of the customer's decision makers.
It replaced expert with “people that know how to do that”, which probably makes sense for the target audience.
(If you’re illiterate in the US, it’s probably because of choices you made, and those choices are correlated to listening to news sources that vilify experts.)
But, yeah, it loses nuance.
Also, I’d argue that literacy is less tied to written language these days than language comprehension, and the ability to articulate yourself.
Back when books were precious those two things were highly correlated. Nowadays, not so much.