Thursday, October 15, 2009

Speak My Mind

class today talked about the benefits of oral memorizing, and oral culture. As it were, stories told and recounted are both permanent and changing, they are constantly modified and still always stay the same. Much in the same way that the reader ascribes his own meanings to whatever it is he is reading, (and this imagination changes depending on simple things like mood, past experiences, train of though, and culture,) the orator will never tell the same story the same way. Subtle variations of tone, pauses, as well as lighting, the mood of the audience will make every experience unique. Reading a book twice, we notice different things.

Still, it's funny to think of how in this day and age, we are still unable to consider the realities of cultures other than our own. Oral culture is, as today's reading illustrates, valuable and valid. It involves a different way of thinking, but it is not necessarily inferior. Still, these people are referred to as being "illiterate"and there are thus the modern equivalent of missionaries out to "enlighten" them. Their intentions are good, but aren't they just trying to fill out the White Man's Burden? Forcibly elevating someone only destroys what they have themselves achieved.


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