by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
Tribune Media Services<\/p>\n
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 \u2014 without seeing those with whom we do business. Taxes are filed over the Internet, and stocks are bought and sold daily online.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
And here is where problems arise.<\/p>\n
Too many of us are growing more illiterate \u2014 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Their mistakes can get embedded into complex computers \u2014 the force multipliers of human error \u2014 whose functions they do not fully understand, which in turn automatically begin sending out mistaken notices, bills and payments.<\/p>\n
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 \u2014 in India. (That said, Indian fixers often prove to be better educated and speak more precise English than their American counterparts.)<\/p>\n
In the last year, I had many brushes with this growing dysfunctional side of America \u2014 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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 \u2014 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.<\/p>\n
I am sure that corporate dons, in their profit-loss models, have factored in all these potential foul-ups \u2014 and concluded that the greater profits of hiring poorly paid, poorly educated clerical workers \u2014 or simply turning everything over to impersonal computer audit \u2014 outweighs the greater risk.<\/p>\n
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 \u2014 costing us time, money and peace of mind.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Just a few poorly educated cogs in our vast electronic wheel can easily undo their work, making our glorious postmodern life once again premodern.<\/p>\n
\u00a92009 Tribune Media Services<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services During the last 20 years, science and a growing economy gave Americans the most sophisticated and leisured lifestyles in history. 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There are plenty of places to start on a variety of different issues. The Middle East\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "February 2005"","block_context":{"text":"February 2005","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2005\/february-2005\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4220,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/moralizing-in-their-sleep\/","url_meta":{"origin":2715,"position":1},"title":"Moralizing in Their Sleep","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 31, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Why U.S. critics turn a blind eye to atrocities by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services To paraphrase the Ancient Greeks, it is easy to be moral in your sleep. Abstract ethics or soapbox lectures demanding superhuman perfection mean little without deeds. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other global\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "October 2005"","block_context":{"text":"October 2005","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2005\/october-2005\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4756,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/when-should-we-stop-supporting-israel\/","url_meta":{"origin":2715,"position":2},"title":"When Should We Stop Supporting Israel?","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 28, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Private Papers The recent assassination of Sheik Saruman raises among some Americans the question\u2014at what point should we reconsider our rather blanket support for the Israelis and show a more even-handed attitude toward the Palestinians? The answer, it seems to me, should be assessed in cultural,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "March 2004"","block_context":{"text":"March 2004","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2004\/march-2004\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2601,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/growing-worries-about-our-pied-piper\/","url_meta":{"origin":2715,"position":3},"title":"Growing Worries about Our Pied Piper","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 12, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Americans are catching on to Obama's fiscal sins and rhetorical devices. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Recent news that President Obama\u2019s approval ratings are beginning to slip is understandable. Even popular leaders lose appeal once they have to govern, and therefore offend, rather than merely promise and please.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "July 2009"","block_context":{"text":"July 2009","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2009\/july-2009\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13873,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/american-armageddon\/","url_meta":{"origin":2715,"position":4},"title":"American Armageddon","author":"Victor Davis Hanson","date":"August 16, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness Americans are growing angrier by the day in a way different from prior sagebrush revolts such as the 1960s Silent Majority or Tea Party furor of over a decade ago. The rage at the current status quo this time is not just fueled by\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6838,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-ironic-foreign-policy\/","url_meta":{"origin":2715,"position":5},"title":"Obama’s Ironic Foreign Policy","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 16, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0PJ Media\u00a0 In the old postwar, pre-Obama world, the United States accepted a 65-year burden of defeating Soviet communism. It led the fight against radical Islamic terrorism. The American fleet and overseas bases ensured that global commerce, communications, and travel were largely free and uninterrupted. 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