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The idea that this, as a sole verbal way of passing on, may be a truer, more valid way of communicating is, I think, also troublesome. Chinese Whispers etc. Oral traditions also rely on a background of other people to make it a safe way to pass on information. Twisty turny things words and words passed on orally are as equally inclined to go off the rails and get reduced and mangled and caught up in all sorts of places that they shouldn’t be.
Ghadis, it wasn't particularly my intention to argue that verbal interchanges are a "truer" way of communicating, but more to explore our relationship to text and orality. Here's one of Ong's lectures - This side of Oral Culture and of Print (PDF, 136kb, from The Walter J. Ong Collection) - where he reviews the shift from oral to print-based culture. Here's a quote I think is useful for this thread:
"Writing gradually changes man from a traditionalist, largely driven by communal forces, to a more interiorly driven, reflective and analytic individual. In an oral culture the only way to "study" was to listen to someone who could talk. In a chirographic or writing culture, a manuscript culture, one could study all alone without any sound at all, with only a book."
and later in the lecture, he says:
"The interest in dialectic which grew out of ancient oral cultures echoes in our related interest in dialogue, in knowledge held in a context of open conversation. We can now readily conceive of thinking as existing in its full social context, not as a merely private, silent activity."
(for a general overview of Ong's work, try here)
For me, this relates to one of the latter discussions on the meta-thread, regarding the 'tensions' between personal expressions and what's accepted as "received wisdom". (between UPG and "the lore" if you like) - or to recast it slightly, between say, someone who's operating from a perception of "what should be" gained primarily from interiorly-derived cognitions (and here I'm including reading a book and meditation as similar, inwardly-directed "private" acts) and a community which has, via discussion, conversation - dialogue - established some degree of consensus over an issue. Perhaps a better way to cast this is the perennial "problem" of someone who's read or otherwise formed the impression that Barbelith is the place to talk about teh Invisibles and Chaos Magic and related loveliness, then is somewhat suprised to find threads discussing biblical hermeneutics or "orthodox" occultism.
I remember when I was first getting interested in the occult - reading loads of books (as one does) and forming a "mental picture" of what occultists and occult groups were "like - and surprise surprise, it wasn't until I started actually talking to other occultists, and joining groups, that I realised how much of a difference there was between forming a solitary opinion from texts, and what really went on. It does sometimes seem to me that there's an "occult side to the occult" - a level of understanding that comes primarily from conversation & shared experiences rather than reading texts.
is this making sense? |
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