Retention of knowledge

Walter J. Ong's devotes most of his second chapter of his book Orality and literacy to a brief account of studies done by Milman Parry and Eric Havelock on the noetic characteristics of oral cultures. After summarizing Parry's investigation of the tradition of the oral epic and his writings on Homeric poetry, Ong states that we cannot but be convinced that Parry was correct in concluding that "the Homeric poems valued and somehow made capital of what later readers had been trained in principle to disvalue, namely, the set phrase, the formula, the expected qualifier- to put it more bluntly, the cliché" .
According to Ong the Greeks of Homer's age relied on such formulaic uses of language to aid in the retention of knowledge. Without writing, if thoughts were not expressed in easily remembere d forms and were not constantly repeated, they would be lost.

Ong then explains that Eric Havelock, in Preface to Plato, extended Parry's conclusions to include the entirety of ancient Greek culture. In Ong's words, Havelock shows how "Plato's exclusion of the poets from his Republic was in fact Plato's rejection of the pristine aggregative, paratactic, oral-style thinking perpetuated in Homer in favor of the keen analysis or dissection of the world and of thought itself made possible by the interiorizat ion of the alphabet in the Greek psyche".

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Jean-Philippe Pastor

Golden apple

In Troy, Hollywood’s recent retelling of an ancient fracas, Orlando Bloom, who plays Paris, gets to keep his prize — Helen played by Diane Kruger.

In this version the playboy prince is not killed by Philoctetes but is shown leaving the burning city of Troy with Helen. He lives to fight another day. The ending may seem unexceptionable for our ‘liberated’ times. But earlier versions all had Paris getting his ‘just deserts’. However, was Paris really to blame for his alleged crime of passion? Didn’t Goddess Aphrodite promise him the love of the world’s most beautiful woman in exchange for the golden apple? (The Goddess of Discord Eris originally created the golden globe inscribed with the words ‘to the fairest’ out of pique for not having been invited to a marriage party on Mount Olympus! She then tossed it into the party and watched the fun as three powerful goddesses fought over the fruit. Rather than risk the ire of the losing parties, the gods passed the potato to Paris who was known for his artless honesty.) It’s another matter that the shepherd-turned-prince was so besotted by beauty that he did not bother to read the fine print — Helen was already married to the powerful King Menelaus who had the backing of dozens of warrior-princes. So would Paris have been better off in choosing brains instead of what the Goddess Athena promised along with skill in war in lieu of the apple?

Or should he have been more impartial and chosen Hera, arguably the most beautiful of the three goddesses, who promised him kingdom of Asia and Europe for the apple? A bigger question relates to binary stereotypes and puritanical mind-sets that tend to pit beauty against brains or pleasure versus duty and virtue. Why couldn’t Paris have the option of choosing beauty with brains? That is the thesis of AC Grayling’s latest book The Choice of Hercules which starts with the Greek hero who said ‘no’ to a life of ease and chose the greatly harder life of a lion-killer mercenary and stable-cleaner. Grayling argues however that in the original Epicurean ideal, pleasure and virtue are not at all mutually exclusive.

Nastily effective religious propaganda separated the two. In fact, the ‘good life’ should involve both, and by identifying one’s strengths and behaving in a sensible, courteous fashion, you can get onto that ‘middle path’. Have the flashy Ferrari along with the freedom of the monk.

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Myth of electronic frontier

The virtual mosy powerful class of our time has driven to global power along the digital superhighway.

Representing perfectly the expansionary interests of the recombinant commodity-form, the today virtual first class has seized the imagination of contemporary culture by conceiving a techno-utopian high-speed cybernetic grid for travelling across the electronic frontier.

In this mythology of the new technological frontier, contemporary society is either equipped for fast travel down the main arterial lanes of the information highway, or it simply ceases to exist as a functioning member of technotopia. As the CEO's and the specialist consultants of the virtual class triumphantly proclaim: "Adapt or you're toast."

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PHONEREADER Library - - Jean-Philippe Pastor