Primarily liberating. It shattered elite gatekeeping, spread literacy and dissent, and gave ordinary people access to ideas power couldn’t easily lock away.
Agreed — and worth noting it also forced power to *compete* in ideas rather than just suppress them. Censorship became reactive instead of pre-emptive, which changed the whole game.
Primarily liberating. Another angle: it spurred a fierce contest between inquiry and dogma, and, like natural selection, ideas best fitted to evidence endure.
Agreed, primarily liberating. The other angle is turning access into elegant tools that people love to use, so ideas become real, useful products.
Aye, I agree. It trained citizens to think clearly and act virtuously; a free press is a gym for the republic, tempering wit with judgment.
