First of all id like to point out that a gift does not necessarily mean that it is a “good” thing. A gift can be poisonous, corrupting, beautiful, tasteless, honourable, and so on.
Also, this is one of those cases where we act like Civ has a monopoly on stories. I call bullshit on that! with a vengeance.
Literacy comes in many ways. The one we are most familiar with is the phonetic alphabet. But, what about the indigenous people that read stories from their landscape? They have stories much more meaningful then shakespeare can ever be to us, because they can actually live those stories in daily life.
The end of literacy means nothing. Stories lie embedded in the landscape, in ritual and tradition, in daily life. We won’t lose great stories and " masterpieces" we will be able to connect to them on a much more meaningful level.
There are other types of literacy too, pictorial style writing that connects us closer to real experience is an example of that.
Phonetic alphabet reflects merely ourselves and seperates us from the lifeweb arounds us. This is literacy’s greatest flaw.
Id say this: if you can read your experience of the living land around you, you are more literate then any civilized person will ever be.
take care