[lit-ideas] Re: [ANTHRO-L] Re: Must the Word be Literate?
- From: "John McCreery" <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Robert Snower" <rs222@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 5 Oct 2007 11:54:48 +0900
On 10/5/07, Robert Snower <rs222@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> "Pre-literate" people wouldn't make a distinction between "absolute
> Truth" and magic, would they?
The question might be better phrased as "Pre-literate people wouldn't
have a notion of absolute Truth at all, would they?" Here the
assumption would be that prior to the invention of writing, the state
and the notion that writing can embody absolute authority, the notion
of absolute truth simply wouldn't arise.
That is the idea that I have been playing with. I am still, in a
proper Popperian, scientific/scholarly way, asking if anyone can point
me to evidence that contradicts it.
What would such evidence look like? We have on the one hand the Gospel
of John: "In the beginning was the Word" or the opening of Genesis,
"God said, 'Let there be light.'"
On the other we have origin myths in which, as far as I can recall,
the creators' language is treated in the same way that it is James
Weldon Johnson's poem, where God does something--He smiles, steps,
kneels by the river and shapes the mud--and says, "That's good." He
comments on what he has done, but no particular power is attributed to
the words themselves.
What I am looking for, in an effort to falsify the assumption
described above, is evidence that there are or have been preliterate
people whose myths treat language in the way that the Gospel of John
and Genesis do.
Anyone who knows of such cases, please inform me.
John
--
John McCreery
The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN
Tel. +81-45-314-9324
http://www.wordworks.jp/
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