Reading and Rioting

“The most faithful disciples were…Boxer and Clover. These two had great difficulty thinking anything out for themselves…they absorbed everything that they were told…They were unfailing in their attendance at the secret meetings…”

Animal Farm, by George Orwell

Americans can’t read very well.

Mob infiltrates the United States Capitol, demanding retribution for false claims bolstered by a habitual liar.

Is there a connection?

There just might be.

The common thread uniting the rioters, it seems, was their conviction that the 2020 presidential election had been “stolen” via fraudulent voting.

It’s not the first time such a claim has been made. But it is the first time such a claim has been legally challenged and summarily dismissed, all the way to the Supreme Court.

Here’s where our lack of reading prowess kicks in.

Because Americans can’t read very well, they can’t reason very well.

When people can’t reason very well, they tend to accept at face value most information presented to them.

A scant 2 percent of Americans read well enough to “integrate information across multiple dense texts; construct syntheses, ideas or points of view; or evaluate evidence-based arguments,” according to the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC).

Wow.

So what does that have to do with the Capitol riot?

Well, arguments about the 2020 election were certainly evidence-based. As in: there is plenty of evidence to support a lack of election fraud, and zero evidence of widespread fraud that swung the outcome.

But that doesn’t matter.

Evidence is useless if most of the people you need to convince are incapable of comprehending it.

The problem isn’t lack of information. In this digital age facts, figures, opinions, research and data are more readily available than ever before.

The problem is that weighing that info – checking facts, seeking opposite opinions, analyzing sources, sifting through data, thinking critically – is for many of us beyond our capabilities. Literally.

The need for skilled readers has never been greater.