Response to Hirsch

Reading Hirsch’s “Literacy and Cultural Literacy” brought to me the voice of complaint of many of my teachers about how my generation lacked knowledge considered “general” or essential to our culture. And although Hirsch makes valid points I also understand that the concept of “shared knowledge” he talks about has changed incredibly since his article was published. The Era of Information has come not only to only to increase exponentially the information people can access but also to cater to our individual interest and thus isolate us from the mainstream audience. 

The existence of a specific amount of channels, newspapers and radio shows limited the options audiences had and were decisive when it came to the information everybody got to access and thus share. These days people have endless choices and are selective about the information they are interested in and there are very few events that become shared experiences between the majority of the population. Although I agree that there are important things that shape a reader and writer’s literacy the information offered is to ample and demographics are too diverse to impose what should be of general knowledge to all of them,  which is probably what sparked Hirsch’s “cafeteria-style education.”

With the access to the internet and media catering to specific interests I think people have the chance to choose what they want to be literate in. Maybe the new shared knowledge is that not everybody knows about the same topics but that all contribute to the conversation from a different perspective even if is not to Hirsch’s standards of literacy.