To put things in contrast: the Russian Empire, home of many great writers, such as Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, and Checkhov just to name a few, had a literacy rate of about 24% overall; and at that, less than 13% of women were literate[1].
The truth is, reading has never really been the pastime of the masses, save, possibly, for a brief period in the 20th century.
Such substance.
> To put things in contrast: the Russian Empire, home of many great writers, such as Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, and Checkhov just to name a few, had a literacy rate of about 24% overall
Like another poster commented, Russia had serfdom until well into the 19th century. Look at central and western Europe, if you want to see a literate society in that time.
Also, what is your point with this? Poor societies had bad literacy levels? Illiterate peasants don't care for books? I struggle to see the point with that observation.
> The truth is, reading has never really been the pastime of the masses, save, possibly, for a brief period in the 20th century.
Not dying of diharrea before the age of 5 has also never been the pasttime of the masses until a hundred years ago. What the hell does that mean? If people start dying of preventable diseases again that we should not worry?? If indices of progress start stagnating, or in this case, regressing, then we must wonder how on earth we are doing so badly.
If 90% of the people stop reading books "deeply" (and that's assuming they ever did), we still get to have Tolstoys of our day for the people who want to spend their time that way. This is no loss for humanity.
You picked "reading books" as your metric of progress, but that choice needs to be justified. If, instead, you picked "watching programmed television", you could be similarly concerned as more people are cutting cable, but fewer people would take this argument seriously.
If we go back to 20% literacy, we still have to likes of Tolstoy.
Arguably famine and disease are bad for those who experience them. Replacing reading books with blogs, games, and video? Not quite so clear.
I argue that nothing is lost at all. The bookworms (to which, I hope, I belong) shouldn't be said if 90% don't participate in their favorite hobby.
Nor has widespread participation in the political process, yet the benefits of democratic society seem worth preserving/enlarging.
My point was that great literature doesn't need involvement of the masses (unlike democracy).
Penny Dreadful existed because Netflix wasn't there. So it will be gone - again, is this a huge loss to the civilization? I don't think there's a sadness that people aren't reading more literature of the Penny Dreadful kind.
And as I said, it's not a slippery slope: you don't need the 90% for great literature to exist.
Most people will read fewer books. And it's fine.
It is the people who need a great thing to inspire/guide them.
To paraphrase you,
Great literature doesn't need the masses, the masses (present and future) need great literature.
We'll have both plenty of readers and great writers even if most people primarily turn to mediums other than books for entertainment.
Dispute this.