(throws stone)
We watched LoB last night, she laughed a bit and commented that the movie would have likely been funnier in 1980.
Inna was born in the Soviet Union (Ukraine), saw the Chernobyl explosion happen, and moved to Biskek, Kyrgyzstan right before the USSR ceased to exist. Her understanding of history is very different from the West’s as Soviet history didn’t teach the Sumerian (Euphrates civilizations)-Hebrew-Greek-Roman-W Europe timeline that we are used to. For example, she had never heard of Alexander the Great until he started appearing in all these trivia videos we’ve been watching on YouTube in the past year, and why would she, given that Soviet history was focused on the development of the Russian people, meaning that… for her and hundreds of millions of people… ancient history began with the Vikings. She knows all about Byzantium, a bit of the Roman Empire (but, again, not the detailed view that a college educated Westerner would know), but, again, the general history of the West… including the existence of a 1970s British comedy troupe… is unknown to her.
Oh, and she came to the US in 2008, so ‘recently’ by some measures, yes.
Oh, another thing. She had never heard of The Beatles until she moved to the USA, and doesn’t really understand what all the hype was.
And it was not because the Soviet Union didn’t have rock and roll… it did, but the Soviet censors only allowed music which came from what I call socialistally-acceptable countries. So ABBA was very popular in the Soviet Union, but the great 1960s/1970s English bands were completely unknown. (Like The Who, another band Inna had never heard of until a few months ago.)
I’m a college-educated Westerner who doesn’t know much at all about the Roman empire.
I guess that’s relevant to this thread.
(My mind is like a sieve when it comes to history. I remember very little. But I don’t think I ever had much education on that subject.)
Ditto. I could never write it, but it is very easy to read.
I read it exactly the way Northern Piper did-- it never occurred to me it could be understood any other way. Still mulling over your interpretation, Beck, which I’m not positive I understand.
The person who chooses not to read, tho’ has that advantage doesn’t necessarily not learn in other ways. Burnt fingers, don’t touch a hot stove. Ba da Bing. You know.
A person who cannot read learned it the same lesson, the same way.
Then there’s those who cannot learn by reading, even though they can read the words. Their brain doesn’t put the sentences together to teach them a thing. I can read about heart surgery. Doesn’t mean I could perform one. (Or possibly put that wire shelf together, even tho’ I’ve read the instructions. Just does not make sense.)
Twain was giving a quip to emphasis the advantages some people have. And others who don’t.
I doubt he thought any more about it than that.
There’s many more vaguaries of people than those who can and those who cannot read.
I think what Twain was simply stating was that being willfully ignorant is no better than being stupid.
Bingo. He was not a man to suffer fools gladly. And lived in an era where the well-read certainly existed alongside the illiterate.
Also in which reading disabilities weren’t yet recognized.
My birthday is on Kristallnacht and the fall of the Berlin Wall. I like the symmetry.
The well-read still live among the illiterate. About 40% of people in the US can’t read beyond a sixth grade level. When I learned that, I was gobsmacked. It explains a lot, though. When you can’t read, you can only take in the information people choose to give you. It makes you vulnerable to manipulation.
I just can’t imagine. Between my job, books, articles and the Straight Dope, I think I’m reading more often than not. It is so fundamental to my life I just can’t imagine what life would be like without it.
Agreed about the appalling state of current US illiteracy and what it says for our future.
What I meant was that (I suppose) that in Twain’s era it pas pretty common for well-read and illiterate people to encounter one another, converse, etc. Everyone knows everyone in a small town, and the USA then was composed mostly of small towns.
Whereas now I suspect things are more stratified / segregated and although 40% of the people in my county (assuming it’s a typical county) can’t really usefully read, the percentage among people I encounter routinely is much, much smaller.
Or so I think; I might be wildly wrong about that.
Oh, that makes sense. Especially because I can’t think of a single person I know who doesn’t read well.
It’s good when life can still surprise you. Wonderful really.
My wife and I are very close to retirement. I taught my wife how to play chess about 5 years ago. We now play every day. Not a single game looks the same.
I also discovered she was in a dart league. I bought a real nice dart board so we have been playing that as well. We’re pretty bad at it, but who cares.
I’m getting off subject, I know, but I discovered that a mirror makes a pretty good dry erase board. See, In our new house, there is a 3’x7’ mirror in the… wet bar area. It’s… odd. We wanted it gone, or something. But hey, I bought a bunch of dry erase markers and it’s just great for expressing random thoughts.
I had something like that at college. Our dorm room was your basic institutional light green concrete block. I bought a 4’ wide roll of paper and a bunch of magic markers and ‘papered’ the wall and let my friends ‘go to town on it’. Everyone has a bit of a philosopher inside them.
I dated a Czech woman when I lived in Prague. Had great trouble explaining the D’oh a deer joke in the Simpsons to her. People who grew up on the other side of the Iron Curtain didn’t watch the Sound of Music every bank holiday like us Westerners did!
In my college years we all had dry-erase boards on our doors and anyone could write anything. I remember before we were very good friends, my husband wrote “I’m loosing my mind,” on my white board, and it wasn’t the insanity I minded so much as the misspelling.
He turned it loose. To find you. So sweet.
What? 
You don’t believe me/him??!?
It’s actually a cute thing he does (I think it’s cute anyway) where he often uses one word when he meant another, or unwittingly combines words and metaphors.
My favorite one so far is: “We’ve gotta put our butts to the metal.”
I like your interpretation.
My mirror ‘white board’ will be interesting. My spelling is atrocious.