The Country That Stopped Reading

>The fact that you have not heard a better explanation is a terrible reason to accept another explanation.

I think you're throwing my argument way out of proportion. I wasn't arguing that we should automatically accept everything the link author said was true. Nor that we should run out and build a comprehensive reform package in Mexico based on his say-so. I was arguing that there was enough substance in his opinion piece, and enough reason to believe that he might have a clue about what's up with Mexico, that it was an over-reaction for the parent poster to run out and shit all over the piece like it had no merit. In fact, the more that I think about it, and thanks in no small part to having to refine my arguments to meet your retort, the more I see the parent poster's comment as completely unjustified. Read on to see how I come to this conclusion if you wish.

>There is no such thing as "its own merits". That is doublespeak for "do not judge it at all". Either it meets the standards of good reasoning, data presentation, and research, or it doesn't You cannot say that it has it own standards for these things that we the reader are forced to accept.

Yes, there is such a thing as "its own merits." No, it is not doublespeak for "do not judge it all." I'm all for judging, believe me. I love judging. But the link is an opinion piece. Do I even need to explain this? It's not a scientific article. It's not an extended journalistic essay. It's not a policy recommendation for government. It's not a sociology research project. It's a short, partisan, personal piece of opinion - intended to provoke thought and stir debate - based on a mixture of personal experience, observations and, yes, opinions.

As far as standards are concerned, I would argue that a quality opinion piece should meet these criteria:

1) It should be honest - the author should be clear about their intentions, reason for writing about the subject, any vested interests, etc, and should not be guilty of trying to deceive or manipulate the reader for dubious self-serving purposes.

2) It should be heartfelt - the author should feel strongly about the issue.

3) It should be clear and persuasive.

4) It should have substance - the author should explain clearly the grounds for their views.

5) It should get to the point - an opinion piece should not be (necessarily) an in-depth survey of a subject.

And I would argue that the link meets these criteria without issue. I've read a lot of opinion pieces over the years and this is not out of place by any means. So I don't see what the big goddamn deal is - other than that it's being posted on HN and today someone feels like making a big fuss over what would normally provoke no reaction.

Anyway, maybe it'd be best to attend to the parent post's critique of the link, and assess the claims, arguments and evidence of the link. So, what exactly does the author claim? Well, let's see. He claims:

1) "Nowadays more children attend school than ever before, but they learn much less. They learn almost nothing."

2) "The proportion of the Mexican population that is literate is going up, but in absolute numbers, there are more illiterate people in Mexico now than there were 12 years ago."

3) "Even if baseline literacy, the ability to read a street sign or news bulletin, is rising, the practice of reading an actual book is not."

4) "Once a reasonably well-educated country, Mexico took the penultimate spot, out of 108 countries, in a Unesco assessment of reading habits a few years ago."

5) "Despite recent gains in industrial development and increasing numbers of engineering graduates, Mexico is floundering socially, politically and economically because so many of its citizens do not read"

6) "Sadly, many teachers, who often buy or inherit their jobs, are lacking in education themselves."

7) "In our schools, children are being taught what is easy to teach rather than what they need to learn."

8) "We have turned schools into factories that churn out employees."

9) "With no intellectual challenges, students can advance from one level to the next as long as they attend class and surrender to their teachers."

10) "The educational machine does not need fine-tuning; it needs a complete change of direction. It needs to make students read, read and read."

Right. So all together: though school attendance in Mexico has climbed, students learn almost nothing of real value. Illiteracy* has risen. People may be able to read signs but no one reads books. Mexico used to be well-educated but now performs badly in UNESCO assessments. Mexico is failing to progress as a nation because its people don't read books, have no love of learning, and lack imagination. Teachers are uneducated/lack a spirit of education themselves. Schools require no real effort, just plain attendance, and produce dull people suited for menial employment, not free thinkers. Finally, the educational system needs a total change of character, and needs to focus on making students read books.

Okay. 4 is readily verifiable. 2* and 3 are the kind of claims that generally are best met by counter-argument from experience - i.e., a Mexican reader, or just a reader with relevant knowledge, reads this, and either sighs and nods their head, or they say "hang on a minute, I know lots of Mexicans who love to read!" I.e. if you are in a position to have an experience-based response to this sentiment, it will either strike you as true or not. Don't forget: this article was originally written in Spanish, for a Mexican newspaper. So the author was safe to assume his readers would be able to independently assess and respond to this claim - and hence, in submitting what confluence is arguing is inadequate substantiation, is not breaking the honesty criteria - because you and the other critics here were never the intended audience.

1, 6, 7, 8, and 9 form the bulk of the author's critique, which is cultural: i.e., that people in Mexico do not read for pleasure, are ignorant of the value of reading for pleasure, that the education system is run by and staffed with people who are ignorant of this value too, and produces graduates who are the same. Extended: people who are thus ignorant lack dignity, ambition, expectations, and imagination, and this malaise of ignorance is undermining any and all efforts to achieve true societal progress in Mexico.

Now, cultural critiques such as this are tricky things to justify. Most people have these sorts of feelings - intuitions, senses about the way society is, etc. These feelings are formed from disparate are substantiated through his depictions of schools, students and teachers in Mexico. Toscana, in this instance, offers these illustrations:

1) Perennial attempts to reform education (indicating that education is an acknowledged problem area for the country, but one which thus far has not been satisfactorily addressed.)

2) He witnessed thousands of striking teachers and found them bored and amusing themselves without exception with insipid distractions. 3) He talked to an audience of ~350 young people and only one would admit to liking reading.

4) A teacher whose attitude he found simple-minded expressed a focus on sticking to the script (which he also patently found unimaginative) and told a story which he found overly simplistic to that same audience.

5) A grand plan to encourage reading failed due to a lack of teacher training, and millions of books produced went unused.

6) The education secretary in his home state failed, in a manner he found simple-minded, to understand the distinction between basic literacy and engagement with books, and to understand the value of reading for pleasure.

7) His daughter's literacy teacher dismissed, again in a manner he found simple-minded, the value of fiction books.

So, to sum up, here are the observations he draws upon: his knowledge of the history of government attempts to reform education, his experience of the behaviour of striking teachers, his experience of an audience of schoolchildren, his experience of the behaviour of a teacher at the school where he addressed this audience, his experience interacting with a senior government education official, his observation of his daughter's school experience.

Are these experiences valid grounds for this sort of cultural critique? I would argue that they are - I myself am satisfied. I think, at the very least, the attitude of the Education Secretary is extremely worrying. I would be very concerned if an equivalent official in my government expressed such an attitude, and for my country I would surprised if there were not a spontaneous effort to have such an official removed from office. Anyway, even if you think this evidence is a little weak, they form a perfectly adequate basis for an initial argument. As I noted above, opinion pieces like this are intended to serve as a springboard for further discussion. So they do not need to be completely fleshed out, because they will naturally meet objections and generate further refinements and clarification of the social issue, hopefully generating some action and change, which is the real aim of this article.

A second issue here is this: can we accept the author's experiences as representative, or symbolic, of wider processes at play in Mexico? I am not sure what my response is to this issue - it's something I've thought about quite often in one guise or another, and I'm still clarifying my position on it. But my gut feeling is that we should listen to people's gut feelings. My gut feeling is that yes, the attitude of one audience of schoolchildren in Mexico can speak to a general attitude prevalent across the entire population. Yes, it does matter if an education secretary completely misses the point of literature. And I do think that culture is in some ways remarkably uniform within national boundaries. But all this is perhaps another issue. The worst possiibility I could see here is that Toscana is a bit of an idealist and a dreamer, and the education secretary was really being pragmatic, not foolish. That is possible.

Anyway, just to wrap this up: the real issue here is not whether the author provided enough evidence to justify his claims - I think the real issue is that confluence is acting in an incredibly presumptuous, arrogant manner in dictating that Toscana's opinions are not valid. I think this is a case of cultural imperialism.

Here's why. Confluence is, I assume, not Mexican. I would guess he is American. What he has essentially done is refuse to entertain the notion that the issue Toscana has identified as critical to Mexico is valid. Instead, confluence, an outsider, has imposed on Toscana the issue he knows the most about, and which he thinks is the most important - the narco-war. Toscana sees Mexico as a country in and of itself, and an issue like the imagination, courage, dignity and ambitions of the people of Mexico as of critical importance. Confluence wants to rubbish the notion that any of that could really be important - and instead force the focus back onto Mexico as a tributary of the United States. Perhaps confluence is upset, subconsciously, that Toscana neglects to even mention the United States?

Whatever. I find it insulting that confluence would try and take away a man's right to argue passionately for something he believes so dearly in. And I feel confluence and you both are displaying a lack of sensitivity on this issue. Perhaps you too would benefit from spending some more time reading for pleasure. You might benefit from developing a better understanding of the passions that drive people, and a little more flexibility and softness in reacting to your fellow human being.

*here assuming, I would argue reasonably, that the author is using the word illiteracy to refer not to technical illiteracy but to not caring to read, having no taste for reading, and no understanding of the value of, novels and books.

Why does this doesn't surprise me...

Well, here it goes: look for a "Instituto Cervantes" maybe they have an attached bookshop (and Library)