Do overs

You probably already know that cursive writing is fast disappearing from school curricula and therefore from the skill set of some young people. Accustomed to keyboarding (typing is a dying term), they do not know how to write or read the older script that in my day was one of the signs that one was growing up. Children printed; adults (or at least third graders) wrote.

In reading some articles about this development, I ran across the following:

So it goes, as the old traditions give way to the technology of the young.

"One little girl said, 'I don't like to write, because when you make a mistake you have to erase. On the computer, you just go back.' I thought, wow. That's this generation," said Miles.

But cursive writing is not what I wanted to write about.

It made me think of the broader cultural reluctance to admit a mistake. When I erase, there are signs that I changed something. On the computer, those signs disappear in the final text. I get to do all the editing I want and it comes out more or less perfect. This is what I do with my blog, run the spell check and so on. And, as you know, I still miss some big ones.

Lots of politicians and other types seem to want to make reality this way. It is impossible to say it was a mistake to go into Iraq or Afghanistan. The most one can do is say that "mistakes were made" and blame it on the computer. 

On the anniversary of President Bush's famous speech in front of that "Mission Accomplished!" banner, there were news reports that this staged camera op was "misconstrued." Gee, how would you construe it?

I am sure you can think of plenty of examples from any presidential administration. Which essentially is my point -- we all do this.

Of course, the churches and other religions have done this for a long time, couching every change in teaching in careful terms to note that this is actually what was always taught, but it was misconstrued or inadequately understood.

Losing the ability to read cursive writing will have an impact in the future when only specialists will be able to decipher texts written before the typewriter came along. Having lost the ability to acknowledge error is already having an impact on our news every day.

Fran Lebowitz says somewhere, "Think before you speak and read before you think, so you will know it is not just something you are making up." 

Now the things we read or hear or even see on the news turn out to have been made up. Where does that leave us? 

NB: This post went online with several errors that have since been corrected. An example of how this works. There may be more errors ...