Practice as epistemology
Since my last post, I have been thinking about the practical implications of epistemology in primary oral cultures or what Walter Ong dubs "oral noetics. Think of a world bereft of text; no computers, no books, no pens, and no memory. Everything that is known is kept between the ears.
No external memory. That is to say, there is no knowledge without the"knower." There is no separation between knowledge and people like we have it now. All knowledge is personal but not in the same way that we think of "personal." In primary oral cultures, personal does not mean private, it means "involving a person."
For all the times that you "looked up" something today, you would have to have engaged a person. Every single time you have relied on anything incorporating writing, you would have had to talk to another person. In the absence of "text" there'd be no cell phones so talking to someone literally means face to face communication.
That changes things. It makes me reconsider my faith.
I happen to think that the most radical change would occur our experience of God. Imagine (for some of you this might seem sacrilegious but indulge me) Christianity without the Bible (for there would be none under orality!). This is not too much of a stretch; there are many Christian who have no literal knowledge of God around the world today.
In this conception, John 1:1 (Amplified version) becomes meaningful in way that it cannot be under scriptographic/typographic Christianity:
Here's another verse I think assumes an enlarged depth under orality. 1 John 4:8 (Amplified again):
In orality, you speak and act what you know. The greatest homage one can pay to any wisdom is to literally "re-call" that wisdom. Without separate repositories for all that we know, what know assumes a real world immediacy unknown to our times. Dan Taylor in his statement on character in Tell me a story hints at this idea when he writes, "Character is values lived" (p.53). Word is "act" as it is in the Hebrew dabar.
I don't often think of the activities of my life as acts of knowledge per se. Perhaps there's a sense in which I can learn what I know from observing the things I do and things I re-call (i.e. say).
Knowledge is not dead, it is real, lived, and experienced...Hence in orality practice is epistemology.
No external memory. That is to say, there is no knowledge without the"knower." There is no separation between knowledge and people like we have it now. All knowledge is personal but not in the same way that we think of "personal." In primary oral cultures, personal does not mean private, it means "involving a person."
For all the times that you "looked up" something today, you would have to have engaged a person. Every single time you have relied on anything incorporating writing, you would have had to talk to another person. In the absence of "text" there'd be no cell phones so talking to someone literally means face to face communication.
That changes things. It makes me reconsider my faith.
I happen to think that the most radical change would occur our experience of God. Imagine (for some of you this might seem sacrilegious but indulge me) Christianity without the Bible (for there would be none under orality!). This is not too much of a stretch; there are many Christian who have no literal knowledge of God around the world today.
In this conception, John 1:1 (Amplified version) becomes meaningful in way that it cannot be under scriptographic/typographic Christianity:
IN THE beginning [before all time] was the Word ([a]Christ), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God [b]Himself.(A)Again: in orality there is no knowledge apart of the embodiment of that knowledge. There can not be a knowledge of God separate from God, "in the beginning was the Word..."
Here's another verse I think assumes an enlarged depth under orality. 1 John 4:8 (Amplified again):
He who does not love has not become acquainted with God [does not and never did know Him], for God is love.There can be no knowledge of love apart from love. To know God is to love God; to love God is love humanity. People become as Buber encourages "Thous" and not it's. There are no love letters to be written, no conferences or big speeches on love. Love becomes not a thing but an act; a perennial abiding act.
In orality, you speak and act what you know. The greatest homage one can pay to any wisdom is to literally "re-call" that wisdom. Without separate repositories for all that we know, what know assumes a real world immediacy unknown to our times. Dan Taylor in his statement on character in Tell me a story hints at this idea when he writes, "Character is values lived" (p.53). Word is "act" as it is in the Hebrew dabar.
I don't often think of the activities of my life as acts of knowledge per se. Perhaps there's a sense in which I can learn what I know from observing the things I do and things I re-call (i.e. say).
Knowledge is not dead, it is real, lived, and experienced...Hence in orality practice is epistemology.
posted by Kundai at 8:41 PM
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