The particular expectations of literacy confirm values associated with its characteristics. Politics and the ideals embodied in the Enlightenment-it carried into action political aspirations originating in religion-and the Industrial Revolution cannot be separated. Expectations of permanency, universality, reason, democracy, and stability were all embodied in the political experience. New forms of political activism were encouraged by literacy and new institutions emerged. Awareness of boundaries among cultures and languages increased. Centralism was instituted, and hierarchies, some very subtle, others insidious, were promoted with the help of the very powerful instrument of language. Within this context, the practical experience of politics established its own domain and its own criteria for effectiveness, very different from those in the ancient city-state or in the pragmatics of feudalism. Identification of the professional politician, different from the heir to power, was part of this process. Politics opened to the public and affirmed tolerance, respect for the individual, and equality of all people before the law. Political functions were defined and political institutions formed. Rules for their proper operation were encoded through literate means. The alliance between politics and literacy would eventually turn into an incestuous love, but before that happened, emancipation of human political experiences would reach a historic climax in the revolutions that took place during this time.
To celebrate all these accomplishments, while remaining aware of the many shadows cast upon them by prejudices carried over from previous political experiences (in regard to sex, race, religion, ownership), was a task of monumental dimensions. We can and must acknowledge that human political experiences played a more important role than in previous social contexts in maximizing efficiency in the pragmatic framework that made literacy necessary. It was at this time that the role of education, and especially the significance of access to it, were politically defined and pursued according to the efficiency expectations that led to the Industrial Revolution. The process was far from being universal. The western part of the world took the lead. Its political institutions encouraged investment, and education was such an investment.
Political institutions reflect the pragmatic condition of the citizen and, in turn, effect changes in the experience of people's life and work. While the word illiteracy probably first appeared print in 1876 in an English publication, in 1880 illiteracy in Germany was only one per cent of the population: "Heil dem König, Heil dem Staat/ Wo man gute Schulen hat!" went the slogan hailing the king and state where good schools were the rule. This was the time when Thomas Alva Edison invented the incandescent light bulb (1879); Alexander Graham Bell, the telephone (patented in 1876); Nicklaus Otto, the four-stroke gas engine (1876); Nikola Tesla, the electric alternator (1884). Nevertheless, before Leo Tolstoy wrote War and Peace, he learned that only one per cent of all Russians were literate. In many other parts of the world, the situation was not much better. In addition, this was also a time when literacy was literally an instrument of political discrimination. Those not literate were looked down on, as were women (some held back from literacy and study), as were nations considered ignorant and of inferior morals (Russia being one of them).
Reflected in the ability to dominate nature, the growth of science and the use of effective technological means influenced the political nature of states, as well as the relation among nations. Rationality formed the foundation of legality; the state ascertained priority over individuals-a very direct reflection of its literate nature. Rules were applied to everyone equally (which later translated into an effective "all are equal," quite different from the empty slogans of populist movements). The rationality in place derived from literacy. To be effective meant to dominate those who were less effective (citizens, communities, nations).
Far from being a historic account, these observations suggest that the literate political animal pursues political goals in line with the sequential nature of literacy in a context of centralized power, acknowledged hierarchies, and deterministic expectations. The political institution is a machine, one among many of the pragmatics of the Industrial Revolution. It did one thing at a time, and one part of the machine did not have to know what the other was doing. Energy was used between input and output, and what resulted-political decisions, social policies, regulations-was mass production of whatever the society could negotiate: lubrication diminished friction. Parties were formed, political programs articulated, and access to power opened to many. Two premises were implicit in the literate discourse: people should be able to express opinions on issues of public interest; and they should be able to oversee the political process, assuming responsibility for the way they exercise their political rights. These two premises introduced an operational definition of democracy and freedom, eventually encoded in the doctrine of liberal democracy. They also confirmed the literate expectation that democracy and freedom, like literacy, are universal and eternal.
The failure of literacy-based politics takes place on its own terms. Dictatorships (left-wing and right-wing), nationalism, racism, colonialism, and the politics of disastrous wars and of the leveling of aspirations that leads to the mediocrity embodied in bureaucracy have brought the high hopes, raised during the climax of literate political action, to the low of indifference and cynicism we face in our day. Instead of the people's broader participation in the political process, a hope raised by progress in making equality and freedom effectively possible, society faces the effects of the ubiquitous dedication to enjoyment in corrupted welfare states unable to meet the obligations they assumed, rightly or not. At times, it seems that the complexity of political experience prevents even the people's symbolic participation in government. Volunteering and voting, a right for which people fought with a passion matched only by their current indifference, have lost their meaning. There is no proper feedback to reinforce the will and dedication to participate. It also seems that in advocating equality and freedom, a common denominator so low was established that politics can only administer mediocrity, but not stimulate excellence. From among all its functions, nationhood, as the embodiment of the experience of political self-constitution, seems to maintain only the function of redistribution.
Individual liberty, hard fought for under the many signs of literacy, appears to be conformistic at best, and opportunistic. To many citizens, it is questionable whether the lost sense of community is a fair trade-off for the acquired right to individualism. The hundreds of millions again and again seduced by the political discourse of hatred (in fascism, communism, nationalism, racism, fanaticism) wasted their hard-won rights in order to take away from others property, freedom of expression and religion, liberty, dignity, and eventually life. Politics after Auschwitz was not meant to become yet another instance of pettifogging. But it did, and we all are aware of the opportunistic appropriation of tragedy (hunger, oppression, disease, ecological disaster) in current political entertainment.
The efficiency expected from political action under the assumptions of literacy is characteristic of the scale at which people constitute themselves. The nation is the world, or the only thing that counts in this world of opportunity and risk. The rest is, relatively speaking, superfluous. Nations, even those that acknowledge the need to integrate, try to secure functioning as autonomous entities. National borders may be less guarded, but they are maintained as borders of literacy translated into economic opportunity. When the goal of autonomous existence is no longer attainable, expansion is the answer. Ideological, racial, economic and other types of arguments are articulated in order to justify the extension of politics in the experience of battle. The two World Wars brought literate politics to its climax, and the Cold War (the first global battle) to its final crisis, but not yet to its end, even though the enemy vanished like a humorless ghost.
A closer look at the systematic aspects of the political experience of human self- constitution should prepare us for approaching the current political condition. This should at least provide elements for understanding all those accumulated expectations that people have with respect to politics, politicians, and the institutions through which political goals are pursued. Political goals are always practical goals, regardless of the language in which they are expressed or the rituals attached. As recurrent patterns of human relationships, political experiences appear to have a life of their own. This creates the impression that agreements dictated by practical reasons originate outside the experience, at the initiative of politicians, due to a certain event, or as the result of random choice.
Political tongues