AS WE trundle towards the end of another chaotic decade, I often wonder if western civilisation is regressing, rather than the opposite.
We seem intent on destroying so many things vital to social cohesion; marvelling that we ever could think them important. Common sense has been ousted by broad principles, rigidly applied, irrespective of context or circumstance.
Take freedom of information: there is not a journalist worthy of the title who doesn’t hold dear to this principle. But should it be applied whatever the potential damage? The elevation of Julian Assange of WikiLeaks to hero/martyr status suggests that the critical mass of the public believes it should.
There appears to be little sympathy for the argument that national and international diplomacy is best conducted in secret. An attitude that risks sacrificing more than common sense.
Consider how many more deaths would have resulted
from the Troubles if journalists had exposed everything they knew. Rigorous, unthinking freedom of information would have killed any notion of a peace process, and made the Northern Ireland situation infinitely worse.
Extrapolate from the Troubles – which were, in relative terms, a backyard squabble – onto the world stage of conflicts and one begins to realise the lunacy of WikiLeaks randomly dumping information into the public domain.
That WikiLeaks seems only concerned with embarrassing democratic nations, while ignoring some of the most outrageously undemocratic and brutal regimes, is instructive. Itself indicative of a self-defeating ailment common across the West.
The blind application of a worthy-sounding principle has caused enormous damage to education as well. It is taken for granted nowadays – indeed it is preached – that every youngster has a fundamental right to third-level education. This is a wonderful principle. Or it would be, if only we attached the proviso, “just so long as they are smart enough”.
Unfortunately, a large section of influential society genuinely believes that intellectual limitations do not exist, only opportunities (despite common sense and everyday experience dictating otherwise). The upshot is, while at one time you had to have higher than average intelligence to get into a university, nowadays you don’t. They are packed with people who shouldn’t be there, and top-heavy with mediocre courses designed to suit.
Potential employers used to put great store by a university degree, but not now. So devalued have they been by lowered standards, it’s just another piece of paper tacked on to a CV. In the job market, a degree is now about as valuable as a 10-metre swimming badge to a would-be lifeguard.
The virtual open-door policy pursued by our universities is far from the only – or even the major – problem with education. I was reminded of this last week; that the real damage was begun many years ago.
During television coverage of the student demonstrations in London, there were close-ups of graffiti painted on the monuments in Trafalgar Square. “Revoution”, screamed one example. The missing “L” was probably an oversight on the part of a panicky student, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
Education systems in the UK and Ireland have for generations now been turning out youngsters with only a basic grasp of spelling, and even less knowledge of the rules of written English.
And let’s not kid ourselves either, the process began long before texting and e-mailing became prevalent.
A few decades back, parents like me were being told by right-on primary teachers that as long as our children could express themselves orally, it didn’t really matter about spelling and punctuation or learning the alphabet. “Sure, they’ll pick those up as they go along,” we were assured.
So much for picking it up as they went along: the long-term outworking of this madness has many of today’s teachers and lecturers with only a passing knowledge of the fundamentals of written English. And still the educationalists don’t seem overly concerned.
The basic rules of spelling and grammar were devised to ensure that written communication is easy to read and understand, and, as far as possible, not open to misinterpretation. Yet everything was squandered on the half-baked notion that this could all be “picked up” as the children went along.
If you want evidence of how bad things are, try reading the material being produced by some of even the brightest of our university students and graduates. It is a distinct rarity to come across anything that isn’t a confused mishmash of mangled syntax and horrendous spelling.
Mostly a punctuation-free, pidgin-like English (or “pigeon-”, as it appeared in this newspaper not so long ago) that requires multiple reading to get the faintest notion of what the author is trying to say.
How can we expect anything else from people who have never been taught how to express themselves in written form? Goodness knows how bad it would be if they didn’t have the (distinctly dodgy) crutch of computer spelling and grammar checks to lean on.