I ran across this quote while reading James C. Scott’s work, Against the Grain.
It is profoundly difficult for me to read this, but I think I owe it to myself to understand farming and writing and reading as complicit elements in the world as we now know it in part–exploited, enslaved, and unenlightened. Scott’s genius is to take the existing state of knowledge and connect the nodes into a very different map, more complex, more carefully nuanced, and more useful.
I have included an alternative, mixed media view of this quote and invite you to share a conversation over the book.
Just a note. This take might be completely off, but from where I am right now in my reading this is how it seems: pwnd & complicit. I am hoping this changes. Please, let it change.
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Well, we always say that writing is power, and here, he seems to suggest writing informs and maintains those in power, right? I suppose there is truth in that, and your question about complicity: It probably is also true that teachers are complicit in how we elevate writing as part of the power structure that inevitably keeps some out of the loop. Would an art-based society, instead of text-based, society be different, I wonder?
Kevin
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Writing enabled leaders to communicate laws and rules to greater number of people spread over greater distances. Thus, supporting growth of cities and empires. Makes sense to me.