Was mass literacy a mistake?

Was mass literacy a mistake?

How do you define that? I'd say most people aren't literate, at least they can't write.

Are you literate enough to make that judgment?

Literate means has read as many books as Borges.

No. Harry Potter is a children's book. It's supposed to be the gateway drug of literature. Comparing it to real literature is absurd.

whatever the machine needs to keep running

Nearly everyone is now capable of both reading and writing. Whether that they are capable of using those skills for artistic purposes is missing the question.

In no way whatsoever.

See this thread and tell me your opinion again.

>being such an edgy adolescent that you think the world was better when only the upper classes could read books and form the canon
I hate this board sometimes.

I mean, literature WAS objectively better then

People end up in the upper classes because, on average, they're genetically superior in intellect and temperament.

how is the scots edition different?

In no way whatsoever.

I was thinking the same thing, but all I could come up with is that it must revolve around Hagrid and Gringotts.

>end up in the upper class
Let me guess you're an amerimutt.

>capable of both reading and writing
But they aren't, that's objectively wrong.

No.
Some of them are born into, but most of them rose into it. Even during the middle ages, someone of peasant stock could be raised to nobility, given he showed talent and loyalty to the King.

Yes they are, stop being pedantic, you insufferable twat.
Almost everyone in western countries can read and write at least to basic level.

Fucking kill the literate

>Even during the middle ages, someone of peasant stock could be raised to nobility
it was not completely unheard of but it was extremely rare
the vast majority peasants were born peasants and died peasants and if you exclude those who became monks or craftsmen that majority rises to pretty much all, even if they'd been the greatest geniuses of their time

by the same token even if you were a complete retard and were born a noble you'd almost definitely die a noble

>Almost everyone in western countries can read and write
No, they can't.

...

>but it was extremely rare
Depends on what country. In the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth, and in France it wasn't that uncommon depending on the period of history. During great wars, service would be rewarded with nobility.

But this is all beside the point, for the nobility to form in the first place the people that became nobles would have needed superior intelligence, organisational skills, and various other attributes to rise to the top in the first place.

>But this is all beside the point, for the nobility to form in the first place the people that became nobles would have needed superior intelligence, organisational skills, and various other attributes to rise to the top in the first place.
Not just untrue, but also says nothing at all about their descendants.

OP's question is ridiculous, because sufficient levels of literacy hasn't even been achieved.

I posit that the average man is better off not knowing how to read or write, he has no interest or ability in these things and so it should not be a necessary undertaking endorsed by the state. But modernity and industrial capitalism has forced literacy on everyone, and it seems doubtful we can reverse this without eliminating written news and social media itself

World literacy rate is 86%, that's including every nigger infested shithole on the planet. European countries, both western and eastern, have literacy rates in the top 99th percentiles. Off yourself.

Fuck off with this historical meritocracy bullshit. Social mobility barely even existed until the modern age.

Yes

Why? Harry Potter isn't that abhorrent to read, for a teenager it's a pretty fun book (unless he is interested in more deep literature of course).

Rome

If there was no bad litterature how would you know what is good litterature?

And if you were a slave? It's not a meritocracy if someone can literally own you.

See, this is what conservatives actually believe.

Fucking dead weight. I'm staring to agree with Nietzsche more and more.