The Revolution Will (In Part) Be Written.
There have been tropes about “keyboard warriors” for as long as there has been the internet. Here's why that hurts all of us.
There have been tropes about “keyboard warriors” for as long as there has been the internet. The equating of writing thoughts, opinions, and other literary forms has been lambasted, especially as a form of “elitist intellectualism.” Here’s why that hurts all of us.
Writing is not class-bound, in fact it liberates individuals regardless of class when they use it. Being educated to read and write is part of why Public Education was founded in our country, as early as 1635. By the mid-19th century it was compulsory and began to be considered a human right for every citizen. Think about that for a minute: We don’t make something compulsory or universal in this country unless a large number of people think it’s important. Now, I know education has some problems, and I have often decried how we could do better, but the goal of helping as many people as we can to achieve literacy is crucial to a thriving democracy. At least some of the reasoning on compulsory public education for children up until a certain age was to ensure that members of all classes, including the working class, had basic literacy.
Now why is literacy important? For that we need to go back to the Germany in 1440, and the printing press. Back then, this novel technology and the written word was not taken for granted, and mass literacy was not possible or desired. But as I’ve written before, technology always amplifies, collapses time and space, and increases access. In the Netherlands it certainly did: Thanks to the printing press and public education, literacy rates increased from 12% in the 16th century, to 53% in the 17th, to in some places nearly 80% of the population in the 19th century.
Back to the U.S. which reached 80% literacy by 1870, that is if you were white. In terms of racial disparity Blacks achieved 20% literacy in 1870, but in less than 100 years of public education had achieved 98.4% literacy to whites’ 99.4%. This means that in less than a hundred years, whites only gained 19.4% to Blacks 78.3% increased literacy. That increased literacy meant additional access to work, the ability to communicate and organize for events such as the Civil Rights movement and other democratizing benefits. It may also be one reason why many white people take for granted the ability to leverage literacy for empowerment.
One more thing about literacy before I go back to keyboard warriors: Reading literally changes your brain. Although we don’t understand how literacy and brain development interact, there has been plenty of evidence that literacy can change our brain anatomy including protecting against biological ageing, cerebral neuropathology, and delaying cognitive deterioration, among others.
Reading and writing are, in short, democratizing, transcendent of class differences, and good for your brain. And yet in this day and age many folks seem to have given up on considering them a legitimate form of political revolution and social change. We all have heard, and perhaps even said, that we can’t make a difference through words. Many opine that people’s opinions are foreclosed and fixed, that our politicians don’t listen to us, and nobody is listening. And so, we, largely white people, fall into silent handwringing.
Friends, Americans, introverts, lend me your ears: We don’t all have to go to rallies or march! There are so many ways to show resistance, and the written word is one of them. Has this technology of writing become so transparent, so taken for granted like the chairs we sit our butts upon, that we have forgotten how powerful the technology is? Literacy is profoundly powerful. We can share ideas and resources with the written word, we can learn how to verify and question by reading. I urge you not to give up on the idea that writing is “doing” something.
Also, writing doesn’t have to look like one thing. At the moment I am writing articles for journals, blogging here with you, emailing on listservs, writing Congress, and snarking on social media. One can write scholarly, or slam scholarship with a poem, engage with someone on social media, or write a haiku on trans rights:
It starts Qs and Ts,
Then healthcare, passports, history.
Humanity fades.
Writing doesn’t cost a thing. It can happen after work, between shifts, and before leaving for school. Writing is inherently social, and as such can be an amazing tool for social justice whichever one of the types on the social change map you are. Guides, Weavers, Experimenters, Frontline Responders, Visionaries, Builders, Caregivers, Disrupters, Healers, and Storytellers—find your type and explore how you can leverage literacy for you.
Your writing can be playful, annotated, poetic or full of misspellings. If anyone criticizes it, you can ignore them or you can say, “Better that my thoughts were written with errors than unwritten.” You can rhyme, lecture, consider your audience or “shout” in the public square. You can write just for you, those you trust, or the world. You can record history or you can change it. You have been given the amazing gift to be capable of sharing your ideas with others, you have been given a voice. How dare you not use it somehow.
E.M. Forster famously said, “Only connect.” Just two words, and what a fitting description of what writing can do. In this time of political turmoil, when totalitarianism is on the rise, don’t be afraid to turn to writing out loud. If you don’t want to post to friends and neighbors on Facebook, pick something else. Pick a few causes you care about and write about them. Write anonymously. Write an email to your centrist cousin explaining why immigration matters, or volunteer to write expert witness evaluations for detainees. Write to local and national newspapers when a hate crime occurs. Write on your Discord servers, college newspapers, and, especially if you are in the working class, start to write a new classic in the spirit of these.
But please, whatever you do, don’t villainize the act of writing, or minimize its power to change minds and brains. In the history of humanity, writing is such a relatively recent superpower and privilege. You relinquish it at our peril.
References
Brackemyre, T. 18th Century, 19th Century Education to the Masses: The Rise of Public Education in Early America https://ushistoryscene.com/article/rise-of-public-education/ Retrieved February 15, 2025.
Crooks, M. (1996). First Public School in America. https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/first-public-school-america/
Eskelson, T. C. (2021). States, Institutions, and Literacy Rates in Early-Modern Western Europe. Journal of Education and Learning, 10(2), 109. https://doi.org/10.5539/jel.v10n2p109
Ostrosky-Solís, F. (2004). Can literacy change brain anatomy? International Journal of Psychology, 39(1), 1–4. https://doi.org/10.1080/00207590344000231