The Human Lifeworld

by Ernie Stanley

"In the absence of elaborate analytic categories that depend on writing to structure knowledge at a distance from lived experience, oral cultures must conceptualize and verbalize all their knowledge with more or less a close reference to the human lifeworld..."

No wonder these people do not have abstract and in depth knowledge of statistics, calculus, Chinese history (except the chinese of course) and logic. It doesn't have a place in their habitat. They have no reason to learn and memorize such things. More realistically, they do not have the capability to complete such tasks. There is simply too much episteme to memorize.

And why do civilized people try? I believe it may have something to do with the amount of technology. Having read some of Walter Ong's works, I think he might agree. Perhaps it is the technology of literacy compelling us to learn, explore and record more so that it might become more developed in itself.