Schrödinger’s Writer: Craving Life as a Starving Artist

A hallmark of a civilized society is that (most) people know how to read and write. This certainly wasn’t always the case. In the Western world, literacy was limited to the ruling classes until the early 18th century, when the Age of Enlightenment spurred reading and writing education for the general public. By the 19th century, mass printing had allowed books and magazines to become a regular form of education and entertainment in Europe and North America.

Although U.S. literacy rates remain disappointingly low, most people are adept at reading and writing basic language. And with the dawn of digital communication, it became easier than ever to write whatever the fuck we want. (Witness all of us here on Medium!)

But with this unprecedented literacy came a damaging idea: the belief that writing is so easy and normal that anyone can do it for professional purposes.

Cringey self-published Amazon novels aside, this has led to a poor job outlook for a profession that was once the stuff of legend. Will we have another Charles Dickens or Virginia Woolf of our generation? Or will no one stand out because writers are doomed to the starving artist lifestyle?

If everyone can write, there’s no need to educate or hire writers — let alone compensate for their talents. And in the age of…