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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neocon who wrote (49561)	6/7/2002 7:58:04 PM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

Well now. Homer "wrote" in a pre-literate culture. We are discovering incredible wisdom in the oral histories, myths, etc. of many pre-literate or even non-literate cultures. Who knows what we have lost? But without writing, people developed their memories. They told stories. Keep in mind that bards memorized the entire Homeric epics. I doubt there is a single person raised in a literate culture today who would be capable of memorizing the Homeric epics in their entirety. A pre-literate culture was able to erect Stonehenge, which was both an engineering and an astronomical marvel. I doubt we could do as well today if we only had the tools they had. Just because we don't know what their wisdom was doesn't mean they didn't have wisdom. It just means they passed it on by oral tradition, not by written tradition.

To: Neocon who wrote (49561)	6/7/2002 8:06:43 PM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

The objective criteria of man being able to fully exercise his faculties, Studying nature to the extent of being able to identify medicinal uses for plants that even our modern science fnd amazing and on point seems to me to be exercising a lot of facilities. Drawing the art of the caves in France seems to me to be fully exercising facilities. Learning the arts of agriculture, of training horses and other animals to obedience, seem to me to be fully exercising facilities. Being able to find one's way across the Pacific ocean to a tiny island without a compass, chronometer, or any other instruments, relying entirely on memory, the stars in the sky, the currents in the ocean, seems to me to be fully exercising facilities. I don't denigrate the quality of life of our ancestors without clear knowledge. They accomplished some amazing things (including the invention of language, the construction of homes, the invention of the wheel, the taming of fire, the exploration of the world, the understanding of the heavens, and lots, lots more) without a single written word. Pretty damn good, IMO. I have no reason to believe they were any less happy or less fulfilled in their lives than I am.