Ah, a Breath of Fresh Air

By: Andrew Sakach
12/9/07

Well, consider all my journals to be back dated because I was horrible about actually posting them... so to begin, Ahem...

"When people live without written records, they tend to sense the world as coming to them fresh each day." (Carmody, 3).

When reading this initial introductory section of Original Visions a few things struck me. First was this phrase. I couldn't help but think how awesome it would be to live in a world like that, where no one cares that someone told that joke on the other side of the planet (due to the Internet in our society) or wrote a similar play or composed a familiar poem. When people live in oral cultures they don't have to worry about messing someone else's copy-'write' up or plagiarizing something and facing consequences for these actions far worse than the ridicule of those unimpressed (if even that). Personally I don't mind giving credit where credit is due but I do think that we go too far when limiting peoples ability to build on each other's ideas without a pending lawsuit.

Another thing is that my girlfriend's an artist. A really good one to boot. However if anyone else out there knows an artist, they're probably the worst artist in the world because everyone else is so much more (insert... creative/imaginative/clever/artistic/visionary/awe inspiring... well you get the picture). It just sucks in my mind that artists constantly get compared to each other when all of their work is absolutely individual and un-repeatable, but because we (we being people that like their money and status) put prices on art that's considered 'most beautiful' then THAT is the best and no other can match it's beauty.

This fresh feeling that gets talked about is really cool because I can see how that would be beneficial sociologically. It simply makes people feel better about their lives and what they do during them. It's not that the guy down the river sings better than you do, it's simply that you sing! Not that a person on the other side of the world can craft the very likeness of god, but that you can create something beautiful out of nothing extraordinary.

Now I can see, at least partially, why so many oral cultures were willing to die than change.