I don’t think the books in the French Revolution period, though subversive, were as effective as TV and today’s media.
From what I have read, back during the time leading up to the French Revolution, it was mostly the elite that read the works of Voltaire and the Enlightenment philosophers. The elite, the Jacobites, etc., in turn, stirred the masses to revolt. Today, its the masses who are subverted directly by visual means.
Who reads books nowadays? A very few. You have to put forth an effort to read a book. They get their daily dose of propaganda from something that requires no effort on their part.
Just one man’s opinion.
That’s where you’re wrong: Turns out, Voltaire and Diderot planned out a march through the institutions long before Gramsci could be credited with the idea, and about 2/3rds of their plan literally involved books as well as people’s literacy in them. Don’t believe me? Read Timothy Dwight’s sermon dealing with that matter:
http://www.wnd.com/2006/04/35810/#LFe1HvZ0eTHxBBmT.99
Specifically:
The Duty of Americans at the Present Crisis by Timothy Dwight, July 4, 1798
“About the year 1728, Voltaire, so celebrated for his wit and brilliancy and not less distinguished for his hatred of Christianity and his abandonment of principle, formed a systematical design to destroy Christianity and to introduce in its stead a general diffusion of irreligion and atheism. For this purpose he associated with himself Frederick the II, king of Prussia, and Mess. D’Alembert and Diderot, the principal compilers of the Encyclopedie, all men of talents, atheists and in the like manner abandoned. // “The principle parts of this system were: // “1. The compilation of the Encyclopedie: in which with great art and insidiousness the doctrines of … Christian theology were rendered absurd and ridiculous; and the mind of the reader was insensibly steeled against conviction and duty. // “2. The overthrow of the religious orders in Catholic countries, a step essentially necessary to the destruction of the religion professed in those countries. // “3. The establishment of a sect of philosophists to serve, it is presumed as a conclave, a rallying point, for all their followers. // “4. The appropriation to themselves, and their disciples, of the places and honors of members of the French Academy, the most respectable literary society in France, and always considered as containing none but men of prime learning and talents. In this way they designed to hold out themselves and their friends as the only persons of great literary and intellectual distinction in that country, and to dictate all literary opinions to the nation. // “5. The fabrication of books of all kinds against Christianity, especially such as excite doubt and generate contempt and derision. Of these they issued by themselves and their friends who early became numerous, an immense number; so printed as to be purchased for little or nothing, and so written as to catch the feelings, and steal upon the approbation, of every class of men. // “6. The formation of a secret Academy, of which Voltaire was the standing president, and in which books were formed, altered, forged, imputed as posthumous to deceased writers of reputation, and sent abroad with the weight of their names. These were printed and circulated at the lowest price through all classes of men in an uninterrupted succession, and through every part of the kingdom.”
In other words, even the Peasant classes had to have read their dreck. There’s no other way the plan could have reasonably worked as listed above.
So yes, that proves that books are definitely just as dangerous as TV. And yes, people DO read books today even still. Just take a look at your literature department at the University system, and many of them STILL manage to make leaps of logic stating that Geoffrey Chaucer, for example, wanted the Equal Rights Amendment (I’d know, I witnessed that first hand).