In ancient Greek, if you knew how to pronounce a word, you knew how to spell it, and you could sound out almost any word you saw, even if you’d never heard it before. Children learned to read and write Greek in about three years, somewhat faster than modern children learn English, whose alphabet is more ambiguous. The ease democratized literacy; the ability to read and write spread to citizens who didn’t specialize in it.
-- Caleb Cain, Twilight of the Books, The New Yorker, 24 December 2007

I'm not really all that bothered by the idea that reading will one day perhaps be confined to a "reading class," primarily because, as far as literature is concerned, it more or less already is.
-- Daniel Green, The Prestige of Exclusivity, The Reading Experience blog, 26 December 2007

It's interesting to take a second to look at wikipedia. It started with the most populist, inclusionary point of view of all, but over time, people being people, a hierarchy and inner circle has been created. The exclusion is based on effort and skill, not race or income, but it's still exclusionary. And at its best, it makes the site work. When it fails, it limits discussion, reinforces small thinking and enrages the outsiders.
-- Seth Godin, Exclusion, Seth Godin's blog, 25 December 2007

Three tracts on the uses & abuses of exclusivity came through the RSS feed ( last week. )