Reading's Decline: How Loss of Literacy Reshapes Thought and Politics

This essay reveals how literacy fundamentally transforms cognition—reshaping not just what we think, but how we think—through Alexander Luria's landmark 1931 studies on illiterate and newly literate Soviet populations. With reading culture in decline globally, the implications for abstract reasoning, political participation, and collective consciousness have become urgent. Understanding literacy as a technology that literally rewires the mind is essential for anticipating the political and social consequences of a post-literate future.