A funny thing I noticed, reading books set in Captain James T. Kirk’s era of Star Trek,* is that certain “old” or outdated items or practices were considered important enough within the series and franchise that the characters took it for granted they would be taught and/or be used even in the far future. In The Wrath of Khan* for instance, both the novelization and the film,* Kirk has to wear a set of reading glasses to see the print in an actual, physical book. The glasses are a gift from Spock because Kirk can’t have the re-gen treatments most people get to improve their eyesight – if I remember correctly, it’s because he is allergic to that specific treatment and doesn’t want another kind that is also available. So, he uses the glasses to read instead.
Barbara Hambly’s novel Star Trek: Crossroad* mentions that cursive is still practiced as well. A person from the future leaves Kirk a note, but because his mind has been wiped of that person to protect him and his crew, Kirk cannot remember this individual at all. He has the computer scan the writing to try to determine the writer’s identity, but of course, since this person is from the future the computer never finds a match.
Various episodes of the original series have Kirk reading actual books, not books on a screen, as well. This is a habit which Captain Janeway also practices in Star Trek: Voyager,* and her favorite holo-programs are those that take place in the past. The Leonardo Da Vinci episodes which star John Rhys Davies and have Janeway working with him in his studio are particularly poignant as they show her working with him by hand. Even though it is a hard-light hologram, like Kirk, she prefers the tactile feel of doing something with her hands despite being able to manufacture things with a simple command to the ship’s replicators.
Other installments in the Voyager series show children at play with physical games or making physical models for school. A crewman killed near the series’ finale was even making “starships in a bottle” by hand. Before his death he had one nacelle left to add to his latest project.
With all that in mind, I have to say that I agree with the author of the linked post: handwriting being “phased out” of education seems more than a little deliberate. Despite its faults, Star Trek countenanced (at one time, anyway) a respect for the past and an understanding that technology could only divorce people from physical labor if they allowed it to do so. It also took for granted that the classics and basics which made mankind human would not be left completely by the wayside.
Our brave new world seems intent on forgetting these lessons. We would do well to ask why and, liking the answers or nay, to make sure these important skills are not erased forever. The future could well depend upon them – and likely as not, it will.
Cursive and Other Archaic Skills
April 4, 2024 by Sgt. Mom
My daughter recently reviewed the various academic programs available at the Hill Country elementary school which Wee Jamie will eventually attend, when she makes her pile in real estate and moves up to that community. Among the skills on offer is training in writing cursive – which we were both pretty thrilled to hear about. (Although I do hold out for home-schooling Wee Jamie.) Apparently, teaching cursive handwriting has been pretty much phased out in elementary school curriculums of late – in favor of either printing or keyboarding… apparently, very few people now hand-write documents. Scrawling a signature is about as far as most people go, these days of computers, cellphones, email and being able to fill out forms on-line.
For myself, I have perfectly awful handwriting; not all the cursive practice in third and fourth grade could remedy this quality a single iota. Frankly, I envy anyone who has excellent flowing Palmer-style handwriting, or the gentleman I met at an art show who could do perfect gothic script lettering – freehand. I have usually resorted to printing, if legibility to another person was a requirement, and there wasn’t a typewriter or computer handy. But I fully support Wee Jamie being taught to write cursive, for the very excellent reason that even if you can’t handwrite legibly – you can still read handwritten documents. Otherwise, whole libraries and archives are closed to someone who simply can’t read such documents.
*These are Amazon affiliate links. When you purchase something through them, this author receives a commission from Amazon at no extra charge to you, the buyer.
If you liked this article, friend Caroline Furlong on Facebook or follow her here at www.carolinefurlong.wordpress.com. Her stories have been published in Cirsova’s Summer Special and Unbound III: Goodbye, Earth. She has also had stories published in the Planetary Anthology Series. Another story was released in Cirsova Magazine’s Summer Issue in 2020, and she had a story published in Storyhack Magazine’s 7th Issue, Cirsova Magazine’s 2021 Summer Issue, and another may be read over at Ember Journal. Vol. 1* and Vol. 2* of her series – The Guardian Cycle – is available in paperback and ebook as well. So is her first YA novel, Debris, which can be purchased in ebook and paperback here* and here*. Order them today! Order them today!
Like Caroline’s content? Then consider buying her a coffee on Ko-fi to let her know you appreciate her work. 😉
A Song of Joy by Caroline Furlong 
Perhaps in the ‘Trek’ verse they passed through this time of ours and realized what a terrible idea it was.
One of the common threads about eliminating handwriting, hand-crafted arts, print books, etc. is that it increases our dependence on technology. And dependency on technology means also dependence on whoever or whatever can supply that technology.
And, as the linked article notes, the simplification and changes in language cuts us off from the past. In our own day, partial illiteracy contributes to this, but even more so the fact that most of us can’t read classical languages anymore. We’re being educated and eased into a state of total dependency.
Good post and link!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Very good points. We are physical beings, and that is one of the reasons there will never be General Artificial Intelligence (that’s a term of art among experts to distinguish it from what we now talk of as AI which is more aptly called machine learning).
I also remember an episode of TNG where Picard went back to the family vineyard in France. Although I thank God for lasers and cataract surgery that allows me both to see and even to read without glasses.
Like Sgt. Mom, I admire the handwriting of the previous generation. My father had beautiful flowing handwriting. My mother’s text was less beautiful but quite practical and legible. My wife’s was a cross between the two–I still have to type some of her stuff into the computer. My own script is frequently illegible even to me, so mostly I print these days. The desuetude of cursive is something I didn’t even think about until my best friend told me how he had to teach his eldest son how to sign his name when he was going off to college.
I remember reading back in the day about the Beatles practicing new, easier to write, signatures, so they could do efficiently sign autographs. I particularly hate the *&&*** electronic signature pads that some places now use. I might as well be signing with an X.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I recently had the mildly unpleasant experience of having a twenty-something associate in my local UPS store profess inability to read a single word of a handwritten address I gave him for a shipment. My combination of cursive and printing is not elegant, but no one has ever before found it illegible. But I had to show it to him on my phone screen before he could read it. You can’t make this stuff up.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I go back and forth with my thoughts about this it seems on a daily basis but I’m coming to the reality, despite of all of our technological marvels that we are in a new dark age that most of us can barely comprehend.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I read the associated article and all the comments. Something mentioned only once is that there is research (and I haven’t got a citation) showing that learning cursive helps to develop certain parts of your brain in a way that printing and typing do not. It also has been shown that typing, in particular, is capable of being done from your eyes straight to your hands without ever passing through your brain, let alone taking up residence there. In fact, when I was taught to type (on an incredibly heavy mechanical typewriter of the kind where the keys could get tangled in case you want to do some age analysis) I was told to try deliberately to achieve this state, that is, eyes to hands, in order to type really quickly.
For some kinds of dyslexia using cursive writing makes a huge difference. Letters that look the same but are reversed, for instance, are formed quite differently, so that the kinetic memory helps keep the brain moving left to right. I watched a dyslexic student who was functioning at a fairly high level, regress when she changed schools and quit using cursive, reverting to print.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Books were considered archaic in the Trek timeline, though. I don’t remember the exact episode, but Kirk meets with a lawyer who still uses books instead of the “digital” version on the computer. The only time comics were ever mentioned was in a Star Trek comic, Starfleet Academy, where Decker and Nog bond over comics and comic collecting.
In fact, a lot of the stuff we enjoy seems lost in Trek time: video games (except for that one game that brainwashed the crew, unless you count holodecks), television, movies, any music that isn’t jazz, classic, or orchestral (never seen Kirk in a future discoteque but Buck Rogers did, and nobody even listens to Jimmy Hendrix)–basically all the stuff the elite enjoys. Tom Paris enjoying a holodeck story based on old movie serial Captain Proton is more out of place because of it, while at least Dixon Hill stories could still exist in one form or another.
LikeLiked by 1 person