Constitutional-Democratic Man (Thomas D. Howes, May 2026, Civitas)
One thing that stands out about the American founding generation, which makes it distinct from prior attempts at republican government, is the almost unprecedented literacy of its populace. Prior to the Reformation, the highest literacy rates in even the most advanced cultures were around 20 percent, but they were usually much lower. With the invention of the printing press and the educational reforms of Protestant reformers (teaching everyone to read the Bible), followed by the Counter-Reformation reforms of the Jesuits, the literacy rate in Western Europe rose to unprecedented levels in the 1500s. England and the American colonies were particularly affected by this trend, with literacy rates in the American colonies, in some places such as New England, perhaps the highest in the world or in all history at that point (though the Netherlands also had a very high literacy rate).
Harvard anthropologist Joseph Henrich emphasizes in his discussion of the “WEIRD” psychology of Westerners how literacy has changed the way our brains process information. He notes that literate people are more prone to perceive things analytically, breaking them down into smaller parts, and have better verbal memory. Media theorist Marshall McLuhan (followed by Neil Postman) saw specifically in the rise of book literacy a new kind of man, a “Literate Man.” For both McLuhan and Postman, the Literate Man was more prone to individualism, that is, to transcend his tribe and adopt a cosmopolitan vision.