Ditto. I have lived in a rural area all my life-fortunately, I made it to a university. Had I not been able to attend college, I’d still be quite ignorant and underexposed to everything, really.
That’s largely true no matter where one lives. There are, however, exceptions. My own father never made it out of the ninth grade, but he admired knowledge and culture and, on his own, became well-read. There was little in the way of literature he didn’t know, and made some contributions to a literary publication himself. He was adept at chess, occasionally winning chess problem contests that used to be printed in newspapers of his younger years. My mother was of a similar mind, and conversation at dinner really was enlightening.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that in the not terribly distant past, people in the middle class and above were much more accomplished than most are now. I recall my father tellng me there were various musical instruments in common barbershops, and people would take them down and play them for their own entertainment and that of the other patrons while they waited. Now and then they would also sing; undoubtedly the origin of the “barbershop quartet”.
If one reads really old newspapers, one can become embarrassed for one’s own time without undue difficulty. As an example, I recall reading a “social” article about a number of “the younger set” who met at the home of one of them to perform a segment of a serious play of the time. Sometimes they assembled for poetry readings or musical recitals. It was apparently not terribly uncommon for people to get together and play very serious classical pieces as well as popular airs of the era. Of course, back then, there was no TV and no social media, so what was the “younger set” to do?
The poor kids had to make do with Shakespeare and Paderewski. :bigyikes:
Among my grandmother’s leavings, I found numerous issues of “Etude” magazine, seemingly a well-subscribed publication of her time which was dedicated to articles about music, performances, artists and so on, with portions of compositions by various composers. I’ll admit, she did complete the eighth grade.
If that was the case in small towns, what would it have been in cities? Of course, there would have been those in both who couldn’t write anything but perhaps their own names.
All of that was in the small town in which my father grew up, of probably about 4,000 at the time. That town now has a population of about 15,000 or so, and has its own citizen orchestra and people who put on plays from time to time for the public.
Today, though, I think there is a significant “falling off” from that, and not just in small towns. Truthfully, I don’t even think the “cultural literacy” prevalent in most colleges now is equal to that when I was in college myself.
Strange to tell, when I graduated from college, even English majors and history majors had little trouble finding jobs. Without really knowing, I’m going to guess that there was not the emphasis on functionality in higher education that there is now. Perhaps the numbers of graduates was lower, per capita, as well, so those who really wanted to attain some level of cultural education could do it without making themselves unemployable.
Realizing as I do that the interviewees are probably “cherry picked” at least somewhat, it is sometimes amusing to see the “Watters’ World” on Bill O’Reilley’s show. Watters doesn’t seem to have undue difficulty finding astonishing ignorance even on the campuses of prestigious universities. Was it always so? I doubt it. I don’t think, for example, anyone with whom I attended college would not have known who Robert E. Lee was, or have been unaware of who ruled Germany in World War II. In fact, I doubt anyone with whom I attended high school would have been that ignorant, and I attended a rural, public high school back in the day.
