ABSTRACT
Writing is among the greatest inventions in human history, perhaps the greatest invention, since it made history possible. Yet it is a skill most writers take for granted. Writing and literacy are generally seen as forces for good. It hardly needs saying that a person who can read and write has greater opportunities for fulfilment than one who is illiterate. Writing has been used to tell lies as well as truth, to bamboozle and exploit as well as to educate, to make minds lazy as well as to stretch them. Socrates pinpointed our ambivalence toward writing in his story of the Egyptian god Thoth, the inventor of writing, who came to see the king seeking royal blessing on his enlightening invention. Political leaders have always used writing for propaganda purposes. In China, on the other hand, during the Bronze Age Shang dynasty, questions about the future were written on turtle shells and ox bones, so-called "oracle bones.".
