Is a circle really anything?

Ernie Stanley

Excerpt from Orality and Literacy:

In a study on cognitive development done by A.R. Luria,

"Oral subjects identified geometrical figures by assigning them the names of objects, never abstractly as circles, squares, etc. A circle would be called a sieve, plate, bucket, watch or moon; a square would be called a mirror, door, house, apricot drying-board."

The subject of the study identified the world around them with situational items, rather than odd categorical abstractions. To oral people, the terms "square", "circle", etc. are meaningless. It might strike someone in the civilized world as odd, but in fact there are no circles or squares outside of a scientific, abstract context which seeks to name and categorize things beyond how they appear.

And is anything beyond how it appears? Doubtfully. The goal of science appears to reduce everything into meaningless parts in some sort of search for prime reality. However, to oral people the prime reality of things is already known. Metaphysics is accepted as ultimate within these people, and thus reducing things to categories is not only impractical but also meaningless. Imagine how much time you waste learning things that don't exist. Will ever find something called a circle outside a text book? It may appear as a circle, but only because we have created the word circle. The circle-appearing object is in fact going to be called something different and far more meaningful and contextual.

The Middle Place

The Zuni tribes, as Sam Gill describes them, founded their cities in a sacred pattern and sacred way. The center of their cities was a place of ritual and the center city was the most sacred. Their entire culture system was based upon the sacred.

I contrast this to the US where we have secularized everything (and with our concept of religious tolerance, have demonized every religion from Christianity to Paganism). We have no God(s) in our city. I find this appaling, and possibly why we have culture wars today. I do not speak as a Christian (I can't be called one). I can't be labeled within any religion. And yet, I feel that I have realized the value of the sacred and a strong sense of metaphysics within the community. It rarely is the government who comes to the aid of those in crisis, but rather the community of the religious in the name of the cosmos who gives aid. Secularism can only go so far, and it appears that because science has no real foundation any more and is constantly being proven wrong (is that not the nature of science?) that it is folly to found the community within such an abstraction.

Religion and the sacred appear to have much more meaning to the believer, or even the observer than quantifiable naturalism. Religion also appears to have much more reverence for the community and habitat, than science which is only reverent unto itself. With this in mind, I advocate dropping your microscope and picking up your soul.

Literacy and Painting

by Ernie Stanley

Reviewing Sam Gill's description of the Navajo process of sandpainting I am struck by several distinct contrasts to the civilized notion of art and painting.

First, is the notion that I must use process when describing a sandpainting, because painting in the sand for the Navajo shaman is not designed to create a work of art, as painting in western society is. The purpose of Navajo sandpainting is to heal a person.

Second, I am struck by the fact that a sandpainting must be destroyed by sunset. Imagine if the great artists of our time destroyed their works of art after completing them. Instead most attempt to sell them to galleries or private collectors. I think that this puts emphasis on the artist, and painting rather than the subject of the painting.

Lastly I consider that the two previous contrasts are the result of literacy vs. orality. The oral consciousness is indebted to the human lifeworld, thus the art they create has a purpose which is found in the process. The literate consciousness, is afforded abstraction, because it is able to record abstract categories outside of memory. Thus painting becomes a different activity in "Civilized" cultures, one that is unconcerned with the human lifeworld