In this thread: many people missing the points being made in the article.
>The ‘tyranny of literacy’ makes us sceptical of knowledge being retained in oral societies for such a long time
This is actually not what I thought this would be about from the headline: I thought someone would pull the Plato quote from Phaedrus about how literacy was inferior because it forced us to engage with views from dead men who were not able to answer for what they wrote.
It's just making the point that if you have a society that's entirely dependent on memory, it's going to have a better memory. This seems logical; their example about remembering phone numbers is simple and relatable.
And Plato made this point as well: "They will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks."
I'd imagine there's a fair amount of motivated reasoning behind rejecting this point.
I can name exactly one living human being who has memorized Beowulf. 1200 years ago that number was undoubtedly greater.
Not as relevant today, you say? OK, name someone who has memorized a work of similar length.
So, I agree with you. That kind of "long-read" memorization is no longer appreciated and cultivated, and I have no doubt it impacts our brains differently than watching a YT video.
The oral tradition is not lost, it just evolved to suit the times; urban legends and creepy pasta just have a lot more relevance. Literacy created the written tradition, moved writing past being just a medium for storage and transmission and moved the word beyond the limitations of speech. What really killed the oral tradition (in the sense TFA means) is technology, the ability to reproduce without error and the idea of "correctness," the old myths ceased to evolve so new ones took their place.
I think this view is doing a bit of a disservice to the article and to the concept by looking at things a little too narrowly. The point is this is not about myths this is about reality -- valid oral records exist in the modern world that are not myths.
Let's take a modern example. There is a place where the road to it's entrance has changed recently. It's been six months and Google Maps has still not updated the "written record" (Incidenetally this a real situation I'm talking about, not a hypothetical fhough it shouldn't matter.) The only reason people in the vicinity know the correct way is through word of mouth. It's a simple case where the oral record is correct and the written record is false. The truth has propagated orally from the people witnessing the change to the surrounding region.
Another example. The educated member of family of farmers always teases their mother about how she always tells them to use oils extracted from various plants whenever they have different ailments, recommending a specific plant depending on what the ailment is. Since the educated child can't find scientific literature supporting the claim, they often ignore the advice. Big pharma is not incentivised to fund clinical studies on these type of plants since they'd rather create a synthetic form of whatever property of the plant is aiding the healing and patent that synthetic formula instead, so studies like these are not prioritized. Years later, when someone finally gets around to conducting clinical studies on some of the regional plants, they end up supporting their mother's claims.
It should be even more apparent if we use the legal system as an analogy, since everyone now understands that if you are not literate in legal matters or don't have a top notch lawyer you can lose even if you're in the right. People are abused because they are legally illiterate, and it is in fact a type of tyranny. Oral records vs written records have the same problem. It's a very hard problem to solve but it is a problem.
It's interesting how people will think that the Klamath preserved an oral story from 7700 years ago, yet in the historiography of Europe, a 50-100 year gap from the events to the recording of them in text is viewed with deep suspicion. For example, viewing the accounts of the Trojan war as being even remotely accurate beyond "there was a war in the bronze age," is seen as pretty fringe.
But there was a war, wasn't there? So why not admit that 8000-year-old myth can have got "the rocks went flying" part right.
Written accounts are still vastly superior to oral tradition of course, their accuracy is on another level. But that doesn't mean there is absolutely nothing to glimpse from old myths.
I had similar thoughts while thinking about the right to own copies of music or films.
That is - increasing ease of recording and transmission of cultural artifacts has homogenised that output, and reduced the urge and ability of individuals to preserve and pass on that output.
I'm not sure that's true, at least for music we've seen an explosion of covers and style remixes. Depending on the popularity and virality of a song, you can often find between dozens to hundreds of different covers of varying quality. And there are artists dedicated to converting popular songs into various other genres.
This! It’s both-and. Literacy has been undeniably good, but we rarely consider the consequences of widespread literacy.
There’s a way of knowing something that can be recalled orally from memory that is different and valuable. But we even measure it using a yardstick for written knowledge (accuracy, breadth, etc).
I believe this overemphasis on written knowledge (really, it’s implicitly a denial that any other type exists) is part of what drives the hysteria about LLMs ending the world. LLM doomerism has to believe that written knowledge is at least the most important if not the only necessary form of knowledge.
having spent significant time with people who hold spoken knowledge, I can promise you that there are still many things that can only be passed this way, and an ancient comment, passed verbaly to me, is directly relevant, as it concerns the adoption of writing by an affiliated tribal group, and how this was proof that "their minds are weak"
Question: What do we call knowledge transfer which came before even oral tradition? I'm talking about things like "hold your axe this way", watching and learning stuff. These traditions are even more easily lost than oral tradition, I'd suppose.
This is such bullshit. Consider the Serbian mythical figure Dukljan. Do you really think this output of several centuries of Chinese Whispers game is a good way to preserve knowledge about the Roman emperor Diocletian?
>A Serbian folk song about Dukljan says that he once removed the Sun from the sky and brought it to the Earth.[1] Saint John managed to trick him and restore the Sun, but afterwards, while chasing him, Dukljan grabbed at him and tore a piece of flesh from John's foot, which explains why humans have arches of the foot.[1]
I don't know, I'm pretty sure this is in the Historia Augusta.
It is ironic that the essay comes from UPenn in Philadelphia.
Many of you may find it shocking or unbelievable, but literacy is slipping in many parts of the US (like Philadelphia). The number of functionally illiterate people is increasing, schools are failing to educate students for a constellation of reasons.
The reality is that we instead suffer from a "tyranny" of illiteracy. I think those folks in their ivory towers, like upenn, should help to address that before starting the pearl-clutching about what has been lost because of widespread literacy.
Basically, people in Philadelphia are not allowed to write about topics that interest them, in this case literacy, oral tradition and history unless they all peraonally become elementary school teachers?
No talking about Homer or territorial expansion of 1880 for them anymore.
The Jivaro of Peru ruse up against their Spanish oppressors. Apparently the Spanish governor of the region was very hungry for gold. He got a bit pushy torturing and killing to get compliance. The tribes banded together, took his fort, melted the gold he had demanded and poured it down his throat.
The written record was preserved some couple hundred years later (I seem to recall a priest was present for the confrontation took notes and drew pictures). The oral history in the tribe had lost it.
Cool story, lost because that tribe has a tradition of blood feuds which causes oral traditions to be interrupted.
My point is that oral tradition requires an unbroken chain and events often conspire to break generational tradition.
The written word is a hedge against the loss of oral history. There’s nothing to say we couldn’t have both.
I don't know. Having all scientific knowledge written down and being indexed for research seams to scale better. Also I am not sure what point the article is trying to make. It seams a bit vague.
I feel with the sentiment for the "loss of skill" due to convenience tech.
But hey, these days many people have the choice (meaning the time and money), to keep some of the skills alive. The internet gives you the possibility to find any person teaching the skill set you seek. For more common stuff even Youtube is a trove often for free.
> are capable of transmitting just as much useful information as the technologies of reading and writing.
No. A mythology of a demon spiting fire and rocks doesn't help you understand geology, tectonic plaques and volcanoes. We know that an eruption happened 7700 years ago without the need for this "oral traditions" bullshit.
Religious superstitions aren't "as much useful information" as science. That's why they are left behind. Religion is useless because is just a mask for ignorance.
Brendinooo|4 months ago
>The ‘tyranny of literacy’ makes us sceptical of knowledge being retained in oral societies for such a long time
This is actually not what I thought this would be about from the headline: I thought someone would pull the Plato quote from Phaedrus about how literacy was inferior because it forced us to engage with views from dead men who were not able to answer for what they wrote.
It's just making the point that if you have a society that's entirely dependent on memory, it's going to have a better memory. This seems logical; their example about remembering phone numbers is simple and relatable.
And Plato made this point as well: "They will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks."
I'd imagine there's a fair amount of motivated reasoning behind rejecting this point.
IAmBroom|4 months ago
Not as relevant today, you say? OK, name someone who has memorized a work of similar length.
So, I agree with you. That kind of "long-read" memorization is no longer appreciated and cultivated, and I have no doubt it impacts our brains differently than watching a YT video.
ofalkaed|4 months ago
sillyfluke|4 months ago
Let's take a modern example. There is a place where the road to it's entrance has changed recently. It's been six months and Google Maps has still not updated the "written record" (Incidenetally this a real situation I'm talking about, not a hypothetical fhough it shouldn't matter.) The only reason people in the vicinity know the correct way is through word of mouth. It's a simple case where the oral record is correct and the written record is false. The truth has propagated orally from the people witnessing the change to the surrounding region.
Another example. The educated member of family of farmers always teases their mother about how she always tells them to use oils extracted from various plants whenever they have different ailments, recommending a specific plant depending on what the ailment is. Since the educated child can't find scientific literature supporting the claim, they often ignore the advice. Big pharma is not incentivised to fund clinical studies on these type of plants since they'd rather create a synthetic form of whatever property of the plant is aiding the healing and patent that synthetic formula instead, so studies like these are not prioritized. Years later, when someone finally gets around to conducting clinical studies on some of the regional plants, they end up supporting their mother's claims.
It should be even more apparent if we use the legal system as an analogy, since everyone now understands that if you are not literate in legal matters or don't have a top notch lawyer you can lose even if you're in the right. People are abused because they are legally illiterate, and it is in fact a type of tyranny. Oral records vs written records have the same problem. It's a very hard problem to solve but it is a problem.
suddenlybananas|4 months ago
DoktorL|4 months ago
Written accounts are still vastly superior to oral tradition of course, their accuracy is on another level. But that doesn't mean there is absolutely nothing to glimpse from old myths.
weregiraffe|4 months ago
cdfsdsadsa|4 months ago
That is - increasing ease of recording and transmission of cultural artifacts has homogenised that output, and reduced the urge and ability of individuals to preserve and pass on that output.
TheAceOfHearts|4 months ago
n2j3|4 months ago
jessmartin|4 months ago
There’s a way of knowing something that can be recalled orally from memory that is different and valuable. But we even measure it using a yardstick for written knowledge (accuracy, breadth, etc).
I believe this overemphasis on written knowledge (really, it’s implicitly a denial that any other type exists) is part of what drives the hysteria about LLMs ending the world. LLM doomerism has to believe that written knowledge is at least the most important if not the only necessary form of knowledge.
diego_moita|4 months ago
Superstitions should never be considered "knowledge", the same way that stupidity is not intelligence and noise is not information.
grim_io|4 months ago
diego_moita|4 months ago
metalman|4 months ago
harvey9|4 months ago
carlosjobim|4 months ago
viraptor|4 months ago
weregiraffe|4 months ago
suddenlybananas|4 months ago
I don't know, I'm pretty sure this is in the Historia Augusta.
crispyambulance|4 months ago
Many of you may find it shocking or unbelievable, but literacy is slipping in many parts of the US (like Philadelphia). The number of functionally illiterate people is increasing, schools are failing to educate students for a constellation of reasons.
The reality is that we instead suffer from a "tyranny" of illiteracy. I think those folks in their ivory towers, like upenn, should help to address that before starting the pearl-clutching about what has been lost because of widespread literacy.
watwut|4 months ago
No talking about Homer or territorial expansion of 1880 for them anymore.
Make it make sense.
yonaguska|4 months ago
rayiner|4 months ago
more_corn|4 months ago
My point is that oral tradition requires an unbroken chain and events often conspire to break generational tradition.
The written word is a hedge against the loss of oral history. There’s nothing to say we couldn’t have both.
AlDante2|4 months ago
boxed|4 months ago
maxZZzzz|4 months ago
I feel with the sentiment for the "loss of skill" due to convenience tech.
But hey, these days many people have the choice (meaning the time and money), to keep some of the skills alive. The internet gives you the possibility to find any person teaching the skill set you seek. For more common stuff even Youtube is a trove often for free.
jgalt212|4 months ago
arresin|4 months ago
diego_moita|4 months ago
No. A mythology of a demon spiting fire and rocks doesn't help you understand geology, tectonic plaques and volcanoes. We know that an eruption happened 7700 years ago without the need for this "oral traditions" bullshit.
Religious superstitions aren't "as much useful information" as science. That's why they are left behind. Religion is useless because is just a mask for ignorance.
teddyh|4 months ago
draw_down|4 months ago
[deleted]
janwl|4 months ago
haunter|4 months ago
I mean some people think that a 65,000 years old story is true [0] so surely a 2000 years old one is more valid
0, https://www.abc.net.au/news/deeptime/tell-me-a-story/
jstanley|4 months ago
viraptor|4 months ago