Writing | Literacy |Books
Beware the Double-Edged Sword of Literacy
It’s Not Always Positive
When I grew up, everyone in my family was an avid reader, so I believed in the power of the written word.
In our house if you had a problem that you didn’t know how to solve, you went to the library and found the solution in a book. That’s probably why I’m fond of self help books.
I was surprised to discover literacy may not be a positive change.
When I read the book Nine Lives by William Dalrymple, it intrigued me to discover that a hereditary oral tradition has been negatively affected by increases in literacy in India.
In the book, Mohan Bhopa is a hereditary singer of epic stories that are very long and complex. He travels from village to village in India, telling the stories that have been passed down orally for generations in his family.
Bhopa is illiterate.
Dalrymple proposed that his illiteracy has actually helped preserve this oral tradition. I did some research and was surprised to discover that there is other evidence that literacy can have a negative effect on an ancient oral tradition.
