Restricting access to literacy and discourse is a regime’s central control mechanism

Evidence

Atwood’s dystopia of Gilead is also a treatise on linguistic control: the Aunts’ indoctrination, the prohibition on women’s reading, the chant-along ceremonies. Communication restriction is the regime’s central mechanism. — , The Braided Reading EPUB, 107

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the course’s recurring theme of information asymmetry as power, echoed in the later surveillance-fiction cluster (Zamyatin, Atwood’s sequel’s ‘afterword frames totalitarianism as a layered archive’). — connects to: The ruling class controls mental production and regulates ruling ideas; Literacy was framed as a unifying nationalist weapon against clannism — I.M. Lewis, I. M. Lewis, A Modern History of the Somali_ Nation…, 527; Discoursing on power differs fundamentally from being silenced by it (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Discoursing on power differs fundamentally from being silenced by it #qualifies (0.65)
• Literacy was framed as a unifying nationalist weapon against clannism #expands (0.60) — I.M. Lewis, I. M. Lewis, A Modern History of the Somali_ Nation…, 527
• Press freedom replaced citizens’ right to speak with a right to be informed #complicates (0.60)
• Radio’s immediacy enables prolonged centralized nationalist political control #expands (0.55) — Harold Innis, The Bias of Communication, 1163