Franco 1

Thomas Franco
Nancy Roche
Writing 1010-013
23 September 2014
Literacy = Power.
The more educated, high society people have been dominating the world for centuries. Have
you ever wondered why? Education systems preparing the future social class orders, and political
power coming from being more literate than the other are all part of the reason. Throughout this
essay the author Gee is pointing out how over the years literacy has enveloped this sense of high
power and praise, how all of those beliefs about literacy are myths, and how the myth of literacy has,
and still does today, give people a higher political and social status over the illiterate.
A text, whether written on paper, or on the soul (Plato), or on the world (Freire), is a loaded
weapon. The person, the educator, who hands over the gun, hands over the bullets (the perspective)
and must own up to the consequences (Gee 61). Literacy in the hands of the powerful is a very
effective, and devastating weapon. If history teaches us anything about how the powerful become
who they are and how they continue their rule, it is that literacy has a big part in it. From the
beginning of time, the people who spoke more eloquently and were able to read, write, and
understand text better than the rest, were put in positions better than the rest. Gee throughout the text
mentions and orchestrates the opinions of others to further support his, whether he disagrees with
somebody (Plato) or agrees with what is being said (Freire).
Gee mentions Plato and how he felt one knew only what one could critically and
reflectively defend in face to face dialogue with someone else (48). Plato believed that written
language was not sufficient, because it was open to free interpretation. The author had the authority

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to have the final word. Plato only wanted the correct interpretation of writings. Gee strongly
disagreed with Plato. Plato believed that literacy separated the higher-minded people from the lower,
therefore giving the higher society practically a secret language to operate from. If only the high
social class, and the elite were able to read and write, then they would easily be able to continue their
rule of the classes with an iron fist given the lower class cannot understand this secret language of
literacy.
The most striking continuity in the history of literacy is the way in which literacy has been
used, in age after age, to solidify the social hierarchy, empower elites, and ensure that people
lower on the hierarchy accept the values, norms and beliefs of the elites, even when it is not
in their self-interest or group interest to do so (Gramsci 1971).
Another one of Gees points in this essay is that education does not automatically make one a
higher human being. Literacy comes from many more things than learning how to read and write.
Literacy comes from interactions between friends and family, and can come from religious
knowledge. Gee goes on to say that schooling does not always better a human, but rather it has
stressed behaviors and attitudes appropriate to good citizenship and moral behavior, largely as these
are perceived by the elites of the society (Gee 56). School is preparing the next generation of elitists
or societys higher ups, not necessarily literate people. Schooling throughout the world has prepared
the next level elitists, but at the same time has been preparing the lower social classes. Educating
them from the beginning to automatically be in that class, lower, to follow, to always agree and think
what the higher more literate class is saying is ultimately correct. This is where the myth of literacy
has become the most frightening, from the beginning education and teaching have been in the
business of splitting the educated into higher and lower societal ranks.
Throughout the text, the argument of how being literate puts one into a higher social and
political class is discussed and backed up. Gee mentions the opinions and beliefs of very intelligent
and very well known and respected men throughout history; from the beliefs of Plato, to 19th century

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Sweeden, all the way to 20th century scholar Freire. History has told us that being more literate than
the majority puts one into positions of power. Gee believes this a horribly true fact, and believes the
world should not exist like that, but recognizes that is how it is.

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Work Cited
Gee, James Paul. "Chapter 4." Social Linguistics and Literacies: Ideology in Discourses.
Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2012