Culture Schlock

QUICK: who said "Knowledge is power?"

Those of you who are culturally literate, contributing members of society undoubtedly responded "Francis Bacon" without a moment's hesitation, for you are well schooled in the essential tidbits of information that bind our great nation together. Of course, when it comes to specific knowledge we should all share, the majority of us are illiterate, basically worthless and perfect examples of why America is plummeting into an educational abyss.

Just ask E.D. Hirsch, whose educational philosophy mirrors Bacon's conclusion. Hirsch, an English professor at the University of Virginia, has enlisted the assistance of Joseph F. Kett and James Trefil to save our nation from cultural stagnation, assembling The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, a collection of specific knowledge of, according to the weighty hardcover's bold subtitle, "What Every American Needs to Know." But there is no power in this book's knowledge.

Hirsch's explanation of the "theory behind the dictionary," like the controversial educational absolutism of Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind, justifies his imposition of a cultural curriculum on all Americans by staking a populist claim to universal education and patriotism. To Hirsch, it is not enough that all children learn how to read; he believes true functional literacy requires a particular back-ground of factual information, which he proceeds to outline in his 600-page, 23-chapter tome. Despite his protestations against labels of academic elitism, however, his arguments are hardly geared to the masses.

HIRSCH'S argument, a summary of the educational philosophy he espoused in his previous best-seller, Cultural Literacy, centers on the idea that common knowledge eases communication and creates a national culture. The dictionary catalogues this particular information, excluding whatever Hirsch considers too specialized, generalized, regional or transient. He claims that widespread study of this body of knowledge can reverse the American educational decline. Apparently, meager teacher's salaries, budget cuts in public schooling, drugs and escalating drop-out rates are merely secondary causes of this decline. If teachers promised to pepper their lectures with proverbs, Biblical references and other culturally relevant trivia, would students really stay in school? Is this the way to achieve "high universal literacy?"

Hirsch maintains that reading skills are limited to topics the reader has encountered, so specific information must be drilled into students' heads. He uses the example of standardized reading comprehension tests: "If a young boy knows a lot about snakes but very little about lakes, he will make a good score on a passage about snakes, but a less good score on a passage about lakes....If you know about lakes and snakes, and rakes and cakes, you will have [a high] reading ability."

Take a break, flake. Some of us grew up reading comic books, sports stories, science fiction or other literature that might not please Hirsch's dignified tastes. We read about what we liked, and that's how we learned to read. If children test poorly on a reading comprehension passage about, say, the Mongolian tree iguana, and well on one about a space taxi, it's because they are more interested in space than in life sciences, not necessarily because have read extensively on the subject. Literacy provides the freedom to discover and decide our own interests, which Hirsch constrains by telling us what to know and then shoving it down our throats. He seems to forget that when he demands that certain things be read and taught, he excludes others and discourages personal exploration.

Hirsch's approach gives facts, facts and more facts, but no vision, no interpretation, no invitation to the world of learning. Instead of reading short clips summarizing the great works of literature, shouldn't students try to read the works themselves? The superficiality of Hirsch's approach is pervasive; students are taught catch phrases to spit out at cocktail parties, but they miss out on both the pleasures of learning and the opportunity to discover what it is that truly interests them.

Hirsch claims that universal cultural literacy would help restore our economic and technological superiority. How? Our computer experts might not be versed in Dostoevsky, but to say that they don't contribute to our culture is to discount the technological advances their single-mindedness has provided us.

Hirsch defines literacy as "the ability to communicate effectively with strangers," and claims that only through educational conservatism can "grandparents communicate with grandchildren, southerners with midwesterners, whites with Blacks..." Does Hirsch really believe that the only way a Black can converse with a white is by appealing to their common knowledge of Herodotus? Communication is more than diverse individuals exchanging stored facts.

THE dictionary seems to lack a viable purpose. The weighty volume is useless as a reference tool. You need to look up a term? Use Webster's. A geographical location? Try an atlas. An expression? Bartlett's is better.

The chapters on Proverbs and Idioms are typically useless. They could be grouped into one category called Cliches, and the explanations provided are almost self-parodying. Here's a particularly helpful one:

apple a day keeps the doctor away, an: Apples keep us healthy.

The most egregiously superficial chapters are the ones on literature, but summaries of several other disciplines lack substance as well. Perhaps Hirsch could offer a suggested reading list for elementary knowledge in fields like economics, anthropology, politics and psychology, but his glossy treatment of the fields does not do them justice. Even the dictionary's highlights--Kett's history chapters and Hirsch's chapters on the Bible and mythology--would be better served by a more extensive treatment than a list of key terms.

Since this dictionary is an inefficient reference tool, I would suggest reading it straight through--especially if you enjoy reading the phone book but wish it could be a bit more repetitive. Wading through the capitalized cross-references is an exercise in prolonged frustration. Here's a typical entry:

Merchant of Venice, The: A COMEDY by William SHAKESPEARE. The most memorable CHARACTER is SHYLOCK, a greedy money lender who demands from the title character "a POUND OF FLESH" as payment for a DEBT.

Another problem is that Hirsch strays from his proposed selection method of avoiding general or expert information. In his chapter on the Conventions of Written English, undoubtedly the worst in the volume, he includes entries like

period: A punctuation mark--.--that ends a DECLARATIVE SENTENCE.

How does that entry help someone who is assumed to at least be able to read the dictionary?

Supposedly, Hirsch weeded out specialized entries by using a formula of selecting only events, people or things that major newspapers would refer to without a definition. (Under that rationale, many of Hirsch's entries are extremely questionable.) The science entries, compiled by Trefil, are exempt from this qualification, since "there is little broad knowledge of science even among educated people." Granted, but does one need to know what thermal inversion is in order to function as a literate member of society? Similarly, would a science major feel a driving need to recognize that John Constable was an artist?

I don't want to quibble too much with Hirsch's choice of entries. (Although I wish W.H. Auden and Charles Schulz's Peanuts had made the list.) I'm not trying to harp on his errors. (Although the good citizens of Tallahassee will be thrilled to note that Jacksonville is listed as the capital of Florida.) But we must be wary of a 600-page list of information with an implicit message that says "You must read me." Perhaps knowledge is power, but is that knowledge confined to the superficial identifications E.D. Hirsch finds important? We should keep in mind another educational truism: "A little learning can be a dangerous thing."