5 min
History – Oral & Written – A Perspective SAMVAD (Together In Conversation)
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- Self-Improvement
Namaste, Welcome to SAM-VAD (Together In Conversation), this is where we try to draw your attention to things that matter and the importance of our attention, why is that? Because ‘let us remember this again, ‘What we give our Attention to matters,’ as Our life’s experience would ultimately amount to whatever we had paid attention to.
Attention: is as fundamental as food; and we go blundering about, seeking ways to assuage the craving, instead of learning how to provide ourselves with what we need, sensibly and calmly. Once our attention is drawn to the mechanism of why and what we give attention to, it is as if a veil has been stripped off and we become freer in our action and choices. And that is our endavour.
This week I bring to your attention another excerpt which we have titled – History – Oral & Written – A Perspective from the book titled ‘The Axemaker’s Gift’ – Technology’s capture and control of our minds and Culture by James Burke and Robert Ornstein.
This book is about the people who gave us the world in exchange for our minds. The gifts we accepted from them gave us the power to change the way we lived, but doing so also changed the way we thought. It is a stunning account of how scientific thinking and technology have gained control over the way we perceive and value the world.
History – Oral & Written – A Perspective
Key to the new way of thinking is that where pictographs were in a sense representations of the object, alphabetic letters were not. For example, an “A” represented nothing specific in nature. The alphabet codified nature into something abstract, to be cut and controlled impersonally. In this way, to some extent the alphabet removed us one more step away from our environment. It also gave us a new view of the past.
While literature was one obvious offspring of the development of the alphabet, a less obvious outcome was the concept of history. Oral memory deals with the present, and recollection is concerned with what is relevant to the present. Biography in an oral tradition is not as much careful scholarship as it is a creative act, in which events are woven into coherence with the aid of imagination. But the accumulation of written records makes it possible to separate the present from the past. Somebody who can read is able to “look back” at what happened before, in a way that the non-literate person never can. Written material is by necessity “dated” and fixed, while an oral tradition is “living” and fluid.
Excerpt from ‘The Axemaker’s Gift’ by James Burke and Robert Ornstein
I am sure that you will enjoy reading this book; you can buy your copy from the following link:
The Axemakers Gift: Technology’s Capture and Control of Our Minds and Culture
Enjoy reading it with your family, friends and near and dear one’s.
Namaste!
a class="a2a_button_email" href="https://www.addtoany.com/add_to/email?
Namaste, Welcome to SAM-VAD (Together In Conversation), this is where we try to draw your attention to things that matter and the importance of our attention, why is that? Because ‘let us remember this again, ‘What we give our Attention to matters,’ as Our life’s experience would ultimately amount to whatever we had paid attention to.
Attention: is as fundamental as food; and we go blundering about, seeking ways to assuage the craving, instead of learning how to provide ourselves with what we need, sensibly and calmly. Once our attention is drawn to the mechanism of why and what we give attention to, it is as if a veil has been stripped off and we become freer in our action and choices. And that is our endavour.
This week I bring to your attention another excerpt which we have titled – History – Oral & Written – A Perspective from the book titled ‘The Axemaker’s Gift’ – Technology’s capture and control of our minds and Culture by James Burke and Robert Ornstein.
This book is about the people who gave us the world in exchange for our minds. The gifts we accepted from them gave us the power to change the way we lived, but doing so also changed the way we thought. It is a stunning account of how scientific thinking and technology have gained control over the way we perceive and value the world.
History – Oral & Written – A Perspective
Key to the new way of thinking is that where pictographs were in a sense representations of the object, alphabetic letters were not. For example, an “A” represented nothing specific in nature. The alphabet codified nature into something abstract, to be cut and controlled impersonally. In this way, to some extent the alphabet removed us one more step away from our environment. It also gave us a new view of the past.
While literature was one obvious offspring of the development of the alphabet, a less obvious outcome was the concept of history. Oral memory deals with the present, and recollection is concerned with what is relevant to the present. Biography in an oral tradition is not as much careful scholarship as it is a creative act, in which events are woven into coherence with the aid of imagination. But the accumulation of written records makes it possible to separate the present from the past. Somebody who can read is able to “look back” at what happened before, in a way that the non-literate person never can. Written material is by necessity “dated” and fixed, while an oral tradition is “living” and fluid.
Excerpt from ‘The Axemaker’s Gift’ by James Burke and Robert Ornstein
I am sure that you will enjoy reading this book; you can buy your copy from the following link:
The Axemakers Gift: Technology’s Capture and Control of Our Minds and Culture
Enjoy reading it with your family, friends and near and dear one’s.
Namaste!
a class="a2a_button_email" href="https://www.addtoany.com/add_to/email?
5 min