Are we really literate?

I've been seriously entertaining that question lately. Bear with me. I'll explain.

The elite allowed us, the workers, to learn to read and write en masse. They even provided (almost) free schools for us to learn in.

The advantages of letting us read and write are clear. We can now do jobs that they need, en masse, so there is competition and salaries are kept low.

But the advantages of having masses that are illiterate are also clear. The illiterate are not privy to a lot of information that is right under their noses.

So, I ask: Are the elite using a language that we don't know about and/or using language differently than we use it so that they can pass messages that we can't read right out in the open to one another?

I know that simple English terms are defined very differently in Black's Law Dictionary. Perhaps the elite use English differently than we do.

Maybe when they say dinosaur they mean taxes or something to that effect.

D2