May 21, 2009

Is America Premodern or Postmodern?

During the last 20 years, science and a growing economy gave Americans the most sophisticated and leisured lifestyles in history. We inexpensively call or e-mail anywhere in the world. With online shopping and banking, Americans acquire and spend electronically – without seeing those with whom we do business. Taxes are filed over the Internet, and stocks are bought and sold daily online.

But with such ease and reliance on computers comes ever-increasing vulnerability. Brilliant engineers may have designed our laptops, cell phones, online commerce and 1-800 call lines. But someone still has to answer the phone, enter data into computers and assist customers who fall through the electronic cracks. And such human audit of the growing power of computerized commerce requires more, not less, educated workers than ever before.

And here is where problems arise.

Too many of us are growing more illiterate – reading less and watching television more. A conservative estimate of the national high-school dropout rate is 20 percent. Even for those who graduate, too often a therapeutic curriculum emphasizing self-esteem; race, class, and gender issues; and drug, alcohol and sex education has crowded out language, science and math.

A highly complex society, staffed by those who are unable to read well and compute at basic levels, can be terrifying. One mathematically inept transcriber or an American receptionist who cannot speak fluent English can do the public a lot of damage.

Their mistakes can get embedded into complex computers – the force multipliers of human error – whose functions they do not fully understand, which in turn automatically begin sending out mistaken notices, bills and payments.

To rectify these mistakes, the exasperated consumer dials in to a computer bank, pushes various buttons, is put on hold and, with luck, eventually finds a living, breathing real person – in India. (That said, Indian fixers often prove to be better educated and speak more precise English than their American counterparts.)

In the last year, I had many brushes with this growing dysfunctional side of America – experiences now common to millions. A Macy’s clerk copied my address wrongly; then others sent three bills to a nonexistent location; and then, without my knowledge, still another reported the undelivered bill to a credit bureau.

DirecTV charged me each month for unwanted NFL football premium channels. Every time I called to stop payments, the phone-bank American receptionists either put me on hold, failed to understand basic requests or spoke English so poorly that communication was nearly impossible.

Most recently, a forger somehow got hold of my Citibank check-router number and began writing phony checks. In our impersonal world, the charges went through unnoticed to my account – even though the forger used clearly counterfeited checks with differently printed names and addresses from my own. We are a long way from my grandfather’s world, where an actual person would have spotted such amateurish fraud.

I am sure that corporate dons, in their profit-loss models, have factored in all these potential foul-ups – and concluded that the greater profits of hiring poorly paid, poorly educated clerical workers – or simply turning everything over to impersonal computer audit – outweighs the greater risk.

But, on the other end of the equation, modern life is becoming not so modern at all for the rest of us. The more sophisticated the chain of our culture becomes, the more it is rendered vulnerable to a single weak link of the ever-more unsophisticated – costing us time, money and peace of mind.

Unless our schools return to an emphasis on language and mathematics, and then hire better auditors of our electronic world, it will not matter how many innovative thinkers like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs or Warren Buffet that America produces.

Just a few poorly educated cogs in our vast electronic wheel can easily undo their work, making our glorious postmodern life once again premodern.

© 2009 TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.