Drift literacy is what a mature ecology would teach its children about how forms live and die: that systems change, institutions become obsolete, categories become inaccurate, beliefs stay psychologically powerful after becoming factually weak, success can hide drift, and belonging can make error harder to perceive.
The questions it trains
In practice it is a habit of asking what was this created to do? does it still do that? what evidence says yes? who benefits from pretending nothing changed? what signal are we ignoring? The aim is not cynical distrust of every institution — it is the ability to tell a form that still works from one merely coasting on familiarity. Taught early and routinely, it makes the everyday drift safeguards something a whole population can actually operate, rather than a discipline confined to critics and crises.