It’s reading and comprehension

This idea that the only condition necessary for (successful) revolution is for conditions to get bad enough, ignores the fact that conditions have been extremely shitty for large numbers of people for long stretches of time. There have been plenty of people suffering under colonialism or slavery, and even without that, people in the past were much poorer in general.

Mismanagement and abuse by the king and aristocracy was by no means a new thing. All across Europe, throughout the middle ages, kings got into long, bloody, expensive conflicts that left them unable to pay their debts. The solution, generally speaking, was to blame the resulting problems on Jews and use them as a scapegoat to cancel the government’s debts and expel them from the country, seizing whatever assets they had in the process. Or just don’t pay your soldiers what they were promised, which happened often (in spite of the risks). In the meantime, of course, you remind everyone that they will get to enjoy eternal paradise, but only if they accept their lot peacefully.

The French Revolution started because the king got involved in a very expensive conflict, the American Revolution, which created a debt crisis. That part was nothing new. What was new was that the bourgeoisie class had developed substantially and possessed much greater wealth and power than they ever had before. Furthermore, literacy allowed people to question the narratives that had previously kept them loyal and passive. They weren’t going to accept, “We can’t pay you what we promised, sorry, the Jews did it” and they had sufficient power to back it up.

Crucially, it also allowed for communication and unity between the politicians of the National Assembly and rural peasants. Without that, rural peasants might see them as persuing their own aims in a way unconnected from their own problems (and contrary to their traditional beliefs and values). This would in turn discredit the National Assembly and make it harder to see them as representing anyone or negotiating with any power behind them.

“When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” If you lack imagination to think of a way things could be different (and how to get there), then you will only double down on the frameworks and solutions the system provides you with. Prayer, racial scapegoating, etc, no matter how illogical they may seem from the outside, without literacy, the only solutions you’re likely to find are the ones based on things you already believe.

I found a paper that seems to be arguing that you’re right about motive, but that the literate French revolutionaries were smarter about it:

It has been widely argued that the growth of mass literacy is critical for the development of modern forms of contentious politics. Recent Scholarship, however, has challenged this view. This study explores the relationship between levels of literacy in rural France toward the end of 18th century and the extent and nature of peasant mobilization at the beginning of the French Revolution. It is found that literacy did not promote rural disturbances as such but that the forms and targets of peasant actions in the more literate areas difered from those in the less literate. The less literate districts were notable for mobilization against rumored but nonexistent invasions, whereas the most literate districts nurtured attacks on the central social institutions of the Old Regime.

Luckily to clear up any self-bragging confusion, test scores and thus literacy, are standardized through tests (primarily written and distributed by McGraw-Hill, which was founded by Ghislaine Maxwell’s [yes Epstein’s Ghislaine Maxwell] Father.)

That totally normal fact aside, the general measurement is reading speed across age-appropriate ‘Lexile’ levels, which is an annoying complex metric assigned to various texts based on grammar, word count, word complexity, complexity of the plot(s), and kinda general vibe.

The Hobbit is 1000L, which is the middle of a 5th grade reading level. Pretty much any fifth grade student, theoretically, should be able to read The Hobbit with little to no trouble nor the need to look up additional words; at around 130 words per minute.

For some other fun examples, Twilight is 720L (3rd grade reading level), Robinson Crusoe is 1360L (at least 7th grade), The Lord of the Rings Trilogy ranges from 810-920L (4th grade reading level, so good brag) and War and Peace, shockingly, is only 1180L.

I also read Lord of the Rings at that age. Unfortunately, I thought “Middle Earth” meant everything was happening in the middle of the planet, i.e. at its center, so I thought all the scenes were happening in giant caves and that was how I imagined the book. When the movie came out (I mean the animated one in the '70s) I was like “why the fuck is everybody outside?”

While my parents were certainly problematic (which for quite some time led to myself being problematic), one of the things for which I’m ever grateful is that, in addition to my primary caregiver reading to us kids while our parents were working/partying/otherwise occupied with things other than parenting, my own parents provided me with books, scores of them, and also took me on road trips, making a game of reading signs, billboards, vanity plates. They also made me look up spellings and meanings in the appropriate, hardcopy reference books. I struggled with some schoolwork, but reading was always truly a pleasure.

I seem to remember in school taking Iowa tests that then would tell you your reading level, regardless of your actual grade level. I’m sure yours was high school/college level to read LotR in 5th and not get bored!

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I read LOTR and all of einsteins works by age 2, lol.

This seems weird. Where’s mississippi? Or oklahoma? Unless you’re counting the total number of illiterate people at which point you might as well just say California leads the nation and people per capita

There’s a reason USA revolutionaries were wealthy, white landowners. Several, but this is one of them.

My support for your argument is /r/teachers

Literacy is not just about reading, it’s also about getting people interested in learning. That’s how we expand our vocabulary and understand language. Teaching someone to be proactive in their language learning prompts people to look for factual definitions & answers. Most people do not read propaganda & lies, they usually just repeat what someone else has said. The only people reading that are the ones searching for confirmation bias of their conspiracy theories (911, UFOs, bigfoot, etc.). This is why fox news is so popular with low information conservatives, or talk radio even. It’s just a passive consumption of lies that they can get ‘angry’ about.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/literacy-rate-by-country

I remember reading in the CIA World Book that North Korea has a near 100% literacy rate.

My understanding is that Norway also has a 100% literacy rate. I mean, apples and oranges as to why.

Better than the US, for the most part

I mean that in every definition of the word “better” possible