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I hate to rain on y’all’s parade, but the US measure of literacy is much more stringent than China’s. America is counting literacy as the ability to use print materials like brochures and manuals fluently, the rest of the world just bases literacy on the ability to read a handful of test sentences in a controlled testing context. That’s the reason that America appears to have gone down as well, they switched literacy measures. The 79% measure is people who are “at or below level 1 literacy”, meaning it counts people who met level 1, people who didn’t meet level 1, and people who couldn’t even take the test at all because of a language barrier or disability. https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2019/2019179.pdf
I’m all for dunking on America but the apples to apples here would be comparing America’s 96% (just excluding those below level 1) to China’s 97%. Historical materialism requires a true material basis to work.
yeah, fair points
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Now do homeownership, maternal mortality, hospital satisfaction, murder rates, suicide rates, reforestation efforts, wind/solar/water energy generation, and green technology development!
: Yeah but…this system allows some “unworthy” people to not die, so it’s clearly an authoritarian failure.
Also, Chinese script, even simplified Chinese, is significantly harder to master than English. I for example can speak Mandarin fluently (as a Chinese person in Canada) but can barely read or write it, and no you don’t just “pick it up” if you can speak it because there is zero correlation between the spoken language and written script, it’s all memorization of every single character. I would have to actually take classes or something to learn to read and write Chinese, which I am definitely considering doing.
Actually, English is technically my second language since I was born in China (long story, left as a young child so wasn’t my choice), and after having learned English and become fluent in both reading and writing it, I keep asking myself “how the hell can you be fluent in speaking English and not be fluent in writing it? If you know how to say a word you know 90% of how to write it unlike Chinese.”
So, sorry anglophones, even if China had the same literacy rate as the US, it would still be more impressive (not of the intellect of Chinese people or any racial bullshit like that, but the effectiveness of their education system and socialist ideology, which English speakers are fully capable of implementing as well with no excuse not to.)
I’ve been learning Mandarin for the past year and a half or so, it’s definitely challenging. Learning to write in particular is incredibly challenging since learning to recognize the characters is an easier task than remembering all the strokes you have to make. My plan is to just use pinyin as input and just skip learning to write. English doesn’t even begin to compare in terms of complexity.
Chinese literacy isn’t only characters. First, all children learn to read Pinyin. THEN they get taught classical characters.
Hi, I wanted to encourage you to learn to read and write Chinese. Don’t push it off for later, go start looking for courses now! 我相信你可以的，加油。
Even I the anglophone am jealous of Cyrillic-script languages. Phonetic languages, where you say what you see, sound so convenient. Even worlds like anglophone have dumb gimmicks like ‘ph’ = ‘f’. The grass is always greener on the other side.
But even then, illiteracy often also means they can’t read basic English, so it’s not even them misspelling weird words like… ‘misspelling’ and ‘weird.’, a large proportion of the USA would seriously struggle to understand our conversation [see replies to this]. And when our alphabet is 26 symbols (52 including capitals) with 10 digits and a handful of necessary punctuation symbols, Chinese script is off by magnitudes.
And having seen some documentaries interviewing people in my country overcoming adult illiteracy, you realize this includes clearly intelligent people who within weeks could begin reciting their own small written speeches, who were often just neglected by the education system and then too embarrassed to seek help or reveal their inability.
some Romance languages have one-to-one phoneme-letter relations as well (e.g. Spanish, but not Fr*nch)
Most Germanic languages, too, are spelled phonetically. English is sort of the rare exception in that family.
well the stats come from the chinese government, are you just going to trust their stats? they’re probably lying about the numbers, don’t be so gullible!1!!11
This is the final refuge of the person that uses Chinese stat’s to prove Uigher genocide through some sort of numerology
final refuge
Very often the first and only one.
It’s the ultimate response. “Everyone who disagrees with me is lying” is a perfect way to always be right about everything, after all, if someone else disagrees, that’s just because they’re pretending to.
west good east bad. you can see that i’m very intelligent.
There is no way US literacy in the 1950s was anywhere near 90% unless you excluded marginalized and minority populations.
Excellent point, and that’s likely exactly how they counted it.
Think about it. In the 1950’s, a lot of people couldn’t afford a radio. Reading was the only way to entertain yourself at home. There were plenty of dime novels and pulps. Schools might not have had things like microscopes, but even the worst places could buy books the other schools were getting rid of.
By the 50’s it was extremely customary for most homes to have a TV and at the VERY LEAST a radio if they weren’t very well off. Radios were dirt cheap.
You’re making the 50’s sound like the 1920’s.
Radios were dirt cheap.
By my understanding, the materials were (and are) so inexpensive that building radios was actually a fairly popular hobby back then. An AM radio with decent reception is pretty simple to make.
You can build your own AM radio in less then an hour with a large metallic object (car, bike, large piece of scrap metal, basketball pole), some aluminum foil, a small piece of copper, and any sort of speaker.
It’s a pretty common childhood science experiment where I am to build functional jerryrigged radio.
But you are right, building functional AM radios was and is pretty common for how cheap the components are. Plus I’m pretty sure I can still go to a store and buy a small working radio for less then 20 bucks.
Jeez TV only arrived in South Africa in 1976. And some delusional people actually think the old government was good lmao
Woof, TV’s were already a popular concept before WW2 in the US, but their development was halted by the war. However once the war ended, television exploded in popularity with the establishment of a dedicated signal network, and it was a staple item in almost all homes by the mid/late 40’s.
The South African regime was good if you were a Boer emerald mine owner. If you were anyone else? Not so much.
For a couple of years now I have been working at a shop in a very, very impoverished and rough part of my city that is predominately occupied by low income minorities. I hope this doesn’t come off condescending but it took me a while to realize that a not insignificant number of our customers struggled to read the menu and price, info ect about products we had. I feel bad even for being a bit frustrated in the past by this, and we do our best to accommodate everyone and make them feel welcomed now I like to think anyway. But this is certainly a widespread issue that is rarely discussed or understood especially by those who reside only in wealthier areas or what not.
Do Cuba too!
Fun fact: the world bank prevented Cuba’s literacy program from being widely adopted because they feared it would be a gateway for people to start reading socialist literature and start revolutions
The US attempted their own program, but it was plagued with inefficiency because it was run by a bunch of NGOs with little collaboration with each other or the people they were supposed to teach (compared to Cuba which made students and workers of all financial and literacy backgrounds teach each other).
Later on the capitalist program was examined and the people in charge of it admitted that had they just gone with Cuba’s model, most of the inefficiencies wouldn’t have existed and their goals would’ve been met much faster.
The program still exists today and it’s being used by indigenous or generally poor communities in South America, Africa, and some parts of the west (Canada and Italy, I believe). No one talks about this even though tens of millions of people are taught by Cuba’s program which they seem to charge at very reasonable prices.
They obviously need the diplomatic support, but it’s insane to think they’re some cynical evil gommies when they really do care about people just because that’s what good people do. Not to mention, they have most of the world’s support including from the west even though they haven’t provided anything to them. They get support for simply existing and struggling against the fascistic giant north of them while also giving so much to the people who need it with little in return. It’s why my eye twitches when I see Ukraine abstaining or voting against ending sanctions against them despite their aid for the Chernobyl victims.
Do you have any books published on Cuba’s systems that you would recommend (English or Spanish)?
Not a book but here’s some sources I used when writing about it previously:
Seara Rey, Kian. “Rosa Hernández Acosta on the Cuban Literacy Campaign.” JSTOR Daily, (2021). https://daily.jstor.org/rosa-hernandez-acosta-on-the-cuban-literacy-campaign/
(This first one is especially interesting as it’s an interview with someone who taught during the literacy campaign)
Leiner M. (1987) The 1961 National Cuban Literacy Campaign. In: Arnove R.F., Graff H.J. (eds) National Literacy Campaigns. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-0505-5_8
Boughton, Bob, & Durnan, Deborah. “Cuba’s Yo, Sí Puedo. A Global Literacy Movement?.” Postcolonial Directions in Education 3, no. 2 (2014): 325-359. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/289310152_Cuba's_Yo_Si_Puedo_A_global_literacy_movement
Boughton, Bob. “Back to the Future?: Timor-Leste, Cuba and the Return of the Mass Literacy Campaign.” Literacy & Numeracy Studies 18, no. 2 (2010): 58-74. https://doi.org/10.5130/lns.v18i2.1898
Herman, Rebecca. “An Army of Educators: Gender, Revolution and the Cuban Literacy Campaign of 1961.” Gender & History 24, no. 1 (2012): 93-111. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0424.2011.01670.x
Griffiths, Tom G. & Williams, Jo. “Mass Schooling for Socialist Transformation in Cuba and Venezuela.” Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies 7, no. 2 (2009): 30-50. http://www.jceps.com/wp-content/uploads/PDFs/07-2-02.pdf
Kempf, Arlo. “The Cuban Literacy Campaign at 50: Formal and Tacit Learning in Revolutionary Education.” Critical Education 5, no. 4 (2014): 1-20. https://doi.org/10.14288/ce.v5i4.183269
Artaraz, Kepa. “Cuba’s Internationalism Revisited: Exporting Literacy, ALBA, and a New Paradigm for South–South Collaboration.” Bulletin of Latin American Research 31, no.1 (2012): 22-37. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1470-9856.2011.00645.x
Lorenzetto, Anna, & Neys, Karel. “Report on the Method and Means Utilized in Cuba to Eliminate Illiteracy.” UNESCO. 1965. http://www.maestrathefilm.org/activos/educators/Lorenzetto UNESCO Study.pdf
McLaren, Peter. “Guided by a Red Star: The Cuban Literacy Campaign and the Challenge of History.” Journal of Critical Education Policy Studies 7, no. 2 (2009):52-65. http://www.jceps.com/wp-content/uploads/PDFs/07-2-03.pdf
Thank you for all these sources! This is great! Will definitely read them when I get hime
Clearly this means the evil see see pee is stealing our literacy.
It’s worse, they’re forcing people to be literate. This is cultural genocide on an industrial scale with see see pee wiping out the culture of illiteracy!
they just keep genociding slow trains and poverty and illiteracy, when will their evil regime stop
Small aside, China has an extensive regular speed train network. Trains are still rather fast, but obviously slower than HSR. It is very beneficial to have both, as the slower trains are quite a bit cheaper. China has a large population, and many people take the regular train, even with standing tickets. These trains move a lot of people and are an important part of the transit system. Sometimes it feels like an inter-city metro since you can take trains at any time to any city.
You’re welcome
literacy rates in socialist countries be likeOk i thought for sure this is bullshit, but apparently not:
Four in five U.S. adults (79 percent) have English literacy skills sufficient to complete tasks that require comparing and contrasting information, paraphrasing, or making low-level inferences—literacy skills at level 2 or above in PIAAC (OECD 2013). In contrast, one in five U.S. adults (21 percent) has difficulty completing these tasks (figure 1). This translates into 43.0 million U.S. adults who possess low literacy skills
I didn’t believe it until I started working. Now if you asked me what the literacy rate is I’d say sub-50%. I’ve met so many people who literally cannot read. As in, they’ve clearly been taught what the letters are and how to sound them out, but following a list of instructions based on those letters is completely impossible for them.
Yeah, living here I would not be surprised in the slightest if it was 50%
Your assessment is probably closer to the truth. 54% of American adults have a literacy below sixth grade level link and some of the people you’ve met probably are considered barely literate yet counts towards the 79%.
A curious statistic I’ve found while reading up on this is that 77% of African Americans have moderate or high reading proficiency while only 65% of white Americans qualify as such. A statistic that you’ll never see racists mention (and libs for those that somehow fit outside the venn diagram)
I haven’t done any research on this, but my gut says it’s because black people are more likely to live in urban areas with at least the basics of public education. Whereas white people comprise more rural areas. Not saying living in a rural area makes you illiterate, like I grew up in a small town in the woods, but it does mean there’s just less of everything, including education. More homeschooling too among white people.
Could also be that white people take education less seriously because they don’t feel threatened by a hostile job market. Did your readings say why there’s a disparity between demographics?
It was just a cute factoid that I noted, so I didn’t look further into the claims.
Your theory could be correct. Another reason I suspect is that due to racial biases and different job market situation arising from the urban/rural divide, black Americans are forced to be more literate in order to survive compared to the average white American.
Can someone fill me on the terms “homeless” vs. “unhoused”? Why is the latter being used more now?
iirc the term “homeless” imply being a complete social outcast, while those people are in fact part of society often with jobs, families, friends etc. The only thing they lack is the physical house, therefore unhoused.
But as other posters noticed, the shift is also a liberal platitutide instead of action.
The shift wasn’t initiated by liberals though, they are quick to adapt to new phrasing though if it means not having to take action that cost money as austerity rules supreme.
Yeah idk where it originated exactly, but the term itself suggest it was coined by someone actually having some empathy and brains, while liberals are famously lacking on both departments. Ultimately Engels is as always correct about the libs “These gentlemen think that when they have changed the names of things they have changed the things themselves.”
Technically people who are couch surfing, sleeping in tents in campgrounds, or sleeping in garages or caravans are homeless as are people living in crisis accommodation. “Unhoused” lowers the statistic to just people without a roof over their head.
Houseless is a way to make homeless people roll their eyes and stop listening to you. If you want an excuse to not do effective work, then its as easy as using that term.
Standard lib response of “We won’t actually change anything but we will change a word and act like it is a bigger deal than actually helping with your problems.”
to a significant extent, it’s the euphemism treadmill, but the usual argument i have seen is that homeless implies an inherent/permanent state of being while unhoused implies a more temporary one.
My take is it really doesn’t actually do much (except perhaps reduce the sense of blame in the term homeless - i.e. unhoused implies they should be housed).
However chuds hate it because of that implication, therefore critical support for the semantic shift.
Thanks
By linear extrapolation, one may conclude that China will reach its goal in 2025, while the US will only reach its goal in 2539
What goal is America striving for, 0% literacy? Lmao
I’m not sure if I get that correctly but are you making fun of people protesting against homelessness? Besides: I’m not a native speak but the sign seems totally fine to me and the message totally valid.
I think the pictures were chosen to contrast the conditions the kids are in. Kids in China are in classrooms getting education while children in US are protesting homelessness.
Ok, that makes sense. Thanks!
Answer is no, you dont get this at all
Thanks for this insight which adds nothing to the conversation since OP already answered me and I agreed with them
That particular user is on some grumpy bullshit today, sorry about that
That actually explains so much about the US
Is the 79% literacy of who can read English or read period? 79% seems insanely low
Have you seen the spelling and grammar on Facebook?
And it’s often not a complete inability to read. They might recognise the shapes of words without knowing how to really read it, like when you go on holiday to a foreign country and start to pick up the local words for bus station or toilets because they’re written everywhere.
People also tend to be able to hide illiteracy quite well, because they’re embarrassed about it. The system failed them as a child, but has also convinced them it’s their own fault.
That does make sense I guess. I haven’t really thought very much about it. Thanks for elaborating
It’s probably a measure of functional literacy, like the ability to read through a page of information and understand it fluently. Someone who is able to sound words out one by one wouldn’t be considered functionally literate, for instance. They’d lack the ability to reasonably get through a text using reading as a tool. Instead reading would be an obstacle.
They might know a few words they need to know, like writing their own name, or reading some road signs, but they’d be unable to get through a novel or textbook. They might even know how to recite the alphabet or do math.
I used to teach adult literacy in the US and I’ve met hundreds of illiterate adults. Most of our studies showed 87% literacy but I could believe 79% too depending on the methodology and definition of literate.
It’s probably a measure of functional literacy
it’s too high for a functional literacy. Even in well educated country like Poland with 99% formal literacy the functional literacy reach around 60%, so in USA it bound to be even less.
Thanks, that’s depressing
That makes sense. I guess it depends on how well you have to be able to read. Id imagine a higher percentage could get buy by reading slowly and asking others about certain words but it would depend on the standard
Adults with the reading level of a small child, basically
English literacy skills sufficient to complete tasks that require comparing and contrasting information, paraphrasing, or making low-level inferences
Persons with very poor skills, for example, may be unable to determine the correct amount of medicine to give a child from information printed on the package
