Mass literacy, largely the product of the nineteenth century European industrial revolution, may be considered in three facets. First, its sociology: human relationships are different when individuals can refer to permanent, written records than when they rely on a person-to-person transferral of information. Literacy also makes possible more complicated and different types of inquiry than is possible in non-literate cultures. Secondly, the cybernetics of literacy: it results in linearity in human thought processes with many side effects. Symbol-use has increased, making people more amenable to systems. Lastly, its political function: it is a mode of affiliation/exclusion used by elite groups to affiliate or exclude the non-elite in systems of ideas and their related institutions. Whether it represents an improvement is determined by the elite's concept of the nature of man, society, and good human institutions. Literacy has been one means for annexing men and their lives to ideologies, but there is an important distinction between partial and full affiliation. Literacy is not always welcomed by the governing elite because it also liberates while it annexes. (AG)