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.
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.
“Mobilizing against rumored invasions” doesn’t exactly sound revolutionary. Isn’t “attacking the central social institutions of the Old Regime” kind of… what a revolution is?
Sounds like “propaganda works better to mobilize the illiterate, for better or worse”
And that tracks. With modern methods and lawmaking to incrementally increase societal illiteracy coupled with an obscene level of increased propaganda, the tools that worked for revolution are turning instead to bolster power for those literate few in power.
A dumber electorate. That’s what’s happening and that’s the goal. The revolution got hijacked. And it’s working amazingly well unfortunately.
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:
“Mobilizing against rumored invasions” doesn’t exactly sound revolutionary. Isn’t “attacking the central social institutions of the Old Regime” kind of… what a revolution is?
Sounds like “propaganda works better to mobilize the illiterate, for better or worse”
And that tracks. With modern methods and lawmaking to incrementally increase societal illiteracy coupled with an obscene level of increased propaganda, the tools that worked for revolution are turning instead to bolster power for those literate few in power.
A dumber electorate. That’s what’s happening and that’s the goal. The revolution got hijacked. And it’s working amazingly well unfortunately.
Not really what it’s saying, both literate and illiterate areas mobilized.