"Nothing is so unsettling to a social order as the presence of a mass of scribes without suitable employment and an acknowledged status. The spread of literacy in an illiterate society is, therefore, a critical process, and it has probably been an element in many turning points in history. Perhaps in retrospect the present convulsions in the under-developed countries will be seen mainly as the by-product of a sudden increase in the number of literate persons. One hears a lot about the revolt of the masses but, aside from the rise of the United States, it would be difficult to point to a single historical development in which the masses were a prime mover and chief protagonist."
--Eric Hoffer, The Ordeal of Change, 1976