But how does the myth do this? According to Derrida, writing is likened to a pharmakon in the Phaedrus. The word "pharmakon" could mean either a medicine or a poison. Consequently, writing as presented by Theuth could serve as an aid or more likely, as Plato believed, like a poison, writing would kill the "living memory". Like pharmacia, the writings could make you stray from your usual path. In discussing the translations of the word "pharmakon", Derrida states that because it is artificial, and because it comes from within, it "can never be simply beneficial". We can see that writing, very much like the pharmakon, is an artificial technology, and cannot be useful. The association of writing with myth is not coincidental. Writing is also associated by Plato with myth, and hence distinguished from knowledge, truth, and Socratic dialectic. Theuth was the polar opposite of Re, the sun god who signified life.
Theuth is not only the god of writing, but also the god of death, and the moon. Thus, just by association alone, writing is linked to death and aptly so, as Plato must have felt, since writing as he saw it was, 'properly no more than an image' as opposed to the 'living word of knowledge' which had a 'soul' (Plato, sec.276a) Plato thus highlights the 'deadness' of the written word by pointing out that the moon-god of death himself invented the tool in the myth of Theuth.
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