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In our society there is an ever-growing concern that the number of literate individuals maybe on a rapid decline. Many are quick to blame and boast that television is corrupting the minds of our youth. Others insist that our education system is not demanding enough literacy building skills from students such as head start reading programs and back to basics: reading, writing, and arithmetic. What is to blame for this steady decline in literacy? I believe that the answer to this question is that society is limiting its own literacy. In his essay, “Literacy and the Politics of Education”, C. H. Knoblauch establishes the links between literacy and politics. He goes on to define the four general categories that most people fall into. The first category introduced by Knoblauch is the functionalist perspective. The functionalist perspective focuses on “pragmatic emphasis on readying people for the necessities of daily life¯writing checks, reading sets of instuctions¯as well as for the professional tasks of a complex technological society” (Knoblauch, 124). The second category described by Knoblauch is cultural literacy. This idea focuses on the idea that literacy “includes an awareness of cultural heritage, a capac