Everything Solid Melts into Air, by Francis X. Maier

Print literacy and the ownership of property anchor human freedom.  Both can be abused, of course.  Printed lies can kill.  Owning things, and wanting more of them, can easily morph into greed.  But reasonable personal ownership of things like a home, tools, and land tutors us in maturity.  It enhances a person’s agency, and thus his dignity.  It grounds us in reality and gives us a stake in the world, because if we don’t maintain and protect what we have, we lose it, often at great personal cost. The printed word, meanwhile, feeds our interior life and strengthens our ability to reason. …