“I am still committed to the idea that the ability to think for oneself depends on one’s mastery of the language, and I am not optimistic about…an army of children waiting to be given the words.” - Didion
There is something almost noble about this statement, but I'm conflicted as to whether or not I agree. A part of me agrees because the high school newspaper was my life for three years, and I have come to appreciate a person's ability to convey his or her ideas effectively. But I disagree with Didion's statement...because I believe that might have be one of the most pretentious sentences I have ever written.
So basically, I agree in the sense that literacy adds legitimacy, but simply being literate does not necessarily mean an argument is justified.
I guess I'm just wondering what others think about this.
Personally I feel like Didion was taking a very pompous view of herself in relation to the hippie counterculture as did so many other Americans at the time. While I definitely agree that there were some absurd aspects of the counterculture in the 1960's, dismissing the views and lifestyle of an entire group of people simply because it is different than your own is ludicrous. Didion's assertion that hippie culture was intellectually invalid on the basis that their vernacular was not straight out of the Oxford dictionary, falls under the "square" conservative backlash that resisted cultural changes throughout the 1950's and 1960's. This type of reaction now arises without fail to oppose almost any cultural shift and while some of these naysayers may speak the truth some of the time, denouncing change to preserve the status quo is never really all that productive.
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