PK’s notebook on L-S’s Writing Lesson
Importance of exact references, page-numbers for references and quotes on your paper. If you see passages you feel you are likely to want to quote in your paper, type them in (= “write them down”)
387
the uncertain authority of the chief: his people only accept him as long as he is useful. Has to gather food!
388
The Nambikwara have no writing and no drawing.
The chief was the “only one who had grasped the importance of writing”. (PK Is this so? Doesn’t L-S later say that the Nambikwara had seen through the chief and realised that writing was not a blessing?)
“Make-believe” - “was he hoping to delude himself?” “This farce”. PK Is he stupid? If not, what conclusions had he drawn about the relationship between the wavy lines and language? Or does he recognise language as other than conceptualisation?
L-S co’s him, like a mother with a child.
Do we remember not understanding the secrets of writing?
389
the secrets of the white man
The chief loses face again - his ‘writing’ backfires (NB p 394 below he was subsequently abandoned by most of his people)
390
(Interlude: the Nambikwas ‘read’ their own land, have expertise that LS does not have. PK cf. Songlines)
The chief has grasped the socio-SYMBOLIC value of writing. Authority and prestige.
In mainly illiterate communities which nevertheless know writing, those who can use it have POWER (rather than status or authority); they have (391) “a hold over others”
391
Looking back from our literate perspective, we might assume that writing allows memory-storage and greatly assists technological progress.
Historically however this does not seem to be the case:
times of great progress (the Neolithic “revolution” 392) were pre-literate.
392
Technological: architecture did not improve with literacy.
Technological stagnation in times of literacy: from Rome to the European 18th cent there was very little technological progress.
but
Correlation between writing and social change: creation of cities and empires. Exploitation. Slavery.
391
.... intellectual and aesthetic progress is simply a spin-off.
Exceptions: pre-literate empire building in S. America and Africa; but these were not sustainable for long without literacy. Literacy consolidates not knowledge but dominion
“Compulsory education in the European countries goes hand-in-hand with the extension of military service and proletarianization.
Internationally: tension between the new states and the old “privileged countries”’ fear of ...
394
the illiterate peoples not controlled by manipulatory slogans and “the still greater proportion of lies propagated in written documents”
On the other hand the insubordinate Nambikwara were not seduced!
From last para on p394 to end of chapter:
A description of the traditions of non-literate inter-tribal communication and barter among the Nambikwara. Traditional and very complex (prob. L-S perceived only part of it)