Episode 281: From Soviet Sun to Capitalist Lamp - The Politics of Literacy

Today’s episode explores the political implications of literacy, particularly contrasting the Soviet Union's approach with that of the Global North. It begins by analysing a 1921 Soviet poster promoting widespread literacy as a means of collective empowerment and liberation, which a large language model (LLM) surprisingly labels as “agitprop.” The author of the source article, Dr. Jaime Hoerricks, challenges this classification, arguing that true literacy fosters critical thinking and can threaten established power structures. She highlights how the Global North often promotes “functional literacy” for compliance, likening it to a controlled “lamp” that illuminates only what is necessary for the system to function, as opposed to the Soviet “sun” representing unrestricted, shared knowledge. Ultimately, Dr. Hoerricks suggests that modern LLMs, rather than liberating, serve to further control information and reinforce existing power dynamics, much like the managed literacy of the Global North.

Here’s the link to the source article: https://open.substack.com/pub/autside/p/glory-to-the-sun-a-little-conversation

Let me know what you think.