This makes it less easy to restrict literacy to an elite. This makes Phoenician writing as difficult to read as hieroglyphics and logographs and limited its spread. The Greek alphabet, however, enabled people to read phonologically, which encouraged widespread literacy. Literacy made people civilised but they still respected tradition. Indeed, some literate civilisations have been more under the hold of tradition than oral societies.
Literacy can strengthen the hold of tradition or destroy it.
The type of writing determines which happens. In societies whose scripts lead to the development of literate elites it strengthens the hold of traditions. A small group becomes responsible for preserving the past. In these societies, learning to read was mixed with another activity-learning the traditional way of doing things. They were unlikely to reflect upon and so undermine it.