on writing

It would be easier to answer if you said something about what you consider a social panacea. If you mean that there is writing that can change society, then the answer is yes and no. It can't change it in any big way. If it could, it would already have happened. Maybe we'd have less violence and wars, less oppression, less national debt, etc. But articles or books written about specific problems can change things if enough people read it and create pressure for change. Books have influenced slavery in the United States, the meat packing industry, and many other narrow areas of concern. But I think the areas of possible change that could be influenced by books is growing less all the time, at least in the United States. Government keeps getting bigger and is almost entirely under the control of mega corporations, so protests by ordinary citizens are having very little effect.