[Xmca-l] Re: Why Computers Make So Little Difference

[Andy Blunden]

So true, Huw!
I think it deserves some reflection among CHAT theorists who take an 
interest in cultural development that when a non-literate community 
comes into contact with "civilisation" they actually meet two different 
things for the first time.
(1) They come into contact with *civilisation*, a.k.a. institutions 
which have developed culture with the aid of the written word, and the 
interaction between the written word and technique, and the immensely 
productive spiral of development which has given us Mozart, Beethoven, 
Darwin, Einstein, and Harpo Marx. That is dialectical logic.
(2) They come into contact with *bureaucracy*, which in its mission to 
manage the collective lives of very large numbers of people, has 
utilised the written word to break down the true concepts created by the 
culture into neat little pigeon holes for filing away, and is dedicated 
to inculcating the minds of our children into thinking in terms of 
taxonomy, rather than true concepts.  That is formal logic.

I think there is a lot of confusion between civilisation and 
bureaucracy, and consequently between true concepts (which nonliterate 
people have, albeit within a limited scope of experience) and 
pseudoconcepts (which are the great love of bureaucracy, the commercial 
world and positivist science.)

Andy
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/


Huw Lloyd wrote:
> ...
>
> The impression that I have of our collectively western society is that it
> is utterly swamped in formal logic and its mode of operation.  Our schools
> and universities are probably the worst of all in this regard, such that
> even raising the notion of schooling based upon creative understanding
> seems to bewilder people (and small wonder that innovators in logic were
> also technical innovators, because it is necessary to create and design in
> order to learn how to think).
>
>   
>