I plan to make a modest proposal. The motivation for this stems from literacy in America - or should I say the lack thereof. According to a UNESCO survey in 2002, it was predicted that 5.3 percent of Americans over the age of 15 are functionally illiterate. Considering we live in a nation that is now more than 300 million strong, 5.3 percent translates to a shockingly high number of people who are unable to read even a voter registration form. It also means that not enough Americans are going to pick up a paper and read it, simply because not enough Americans are able to. This is a travesty. One of the fundamental qualities of a nation is a literary history, and I believe ours is fading. Children do not look to great writers for inspiration. Very few read Charles Dickens, Mark Twain or Edgar Allen Poe. Even fewer adults can tell you who William Blake is. To rectify this, I have resolved to make a modest proposal. The newspapers must work to revive literature. They must lessen their attempts to create dramatic news pieces for people to read. Instead, they should seek literary brilliance. They need to bring back a culture that has been lost. A few years ago, the great sesquipedalian essayist William F. Buckley died. His long time intellectual rival, Gore Vidal, is also aging. When both have gone, who will be the master essayists? Where will politics and good writing be found? I feel that the newspapers can revive it. I also feel that the results of an attempt would be symbiotic.
On a certain level, a functioning democracy revolves around communication. A well-informed public (and a well-read public) is a more competent electorate then one that is aloof to the nation's issues and politics. For years, it has been a role - even the responsibility - of newspapers to inform the public and keep checks on town hall. We all have heard of this concept stemming back to Upton Sinclair and yellow journalism. In our modern age, however, the newspaper is fading to the growing influence of the Internet. More and more Americans are getting their news from online blogs or other convoluted sources. The current situation brings about another problem and reminds one of the original intent of newspapers. Some of the earliest papers ever published were called the Tatler and the Spectator. Two men named Addison and Steele wrote both of these, often times conglomerating with famous writers such as Jonathan Swift. The goal of their papers was to hold a mirror up to society, and allow them to see what their lives truly looked like. In the first edition of the Spectator, Addison and Steele introduced "the narrator of the paper," Mr. Spectator. Mr. Spectator described himself as a silent man of the crowd, who spent years observing the people, and was now finally willing to speak. He claimed that there was too much for the people to learn about themselves for him to stay quiet. In 2010, there is no Mr. Spectator, and unfortunately, in the democracy that we have today, he could be most useful. The people of America need to be more introspective and observant of their surrounding. With the waning influence of newspapers, it seems that such introspection will not occur. So what mirror is there for Americans to look into?
If nothing else, it would be wonderful for poetry to exist in our society. How many people actually read poetry? Not many. This could easily be solved if the papers printed poems. A section could be dedicated to past poems, poems from modern day poets and reader submissions. Such a simple change could promote an entirely new way for the public to express itself.
The next step would be essays. Essays take a single topic and create dialogue. Some truly masterfully written essays can change outlooks and opinions. What a day it would be if people purchased the paper to read an intellectually constructed essay - complete with symbolism, irony and metaphors - that not only helped the reader learn to write from example, but also made them think.\nUnfortunately, it seems that people are going to stop reading the newspaper for the news. They have TV, radio and the internet; the newspaper is quickly becoming obsolete. People may continue to read the papers, however, for culture. If the paper became a place of intellectual fodder, that people could debate and discuss, print culture may survive. At this pace, the papers will die. With a new goal, they could strive and at the same time serve their nation valiantly. An increase in literary interest would promote reading nationwide.
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