The Latest Addition to My Memory Palace...Reverend Mark

And the line is..."I will preach to thee. Mark." Lear. This guy is a paranormal spiritual counselor, in case you may need one. He has his own troop of paranormal goons and all.

And the coup de grace...Mark stroking out as he climbs his stairwell.

This guy may never exit the memory theater, hopefully I don't laugh too hard while delivering that line.

Levi-Strauss

Claude Levi-Strauss was considered one of the founding fathers of anthropology. I found an interesting section in chapter 28 of Tristes Tropiques where he describes some of the effects of writing on the Nambikwara, a sparsely populated primary oral culture inhabiting rural Mato Grosso Brazil. The memoire, published in 1955, highlights anthropological studies of rural cultures of different areas but mostly those in Brazil. Chapter 28: A Writing Lesson, details his travels to and with the Nambikwara and the intersection of chirographic and oral cultures.

After traveling to the Nambikwara village, Levi-Strauss gives all the villagers sheets of paper and pencils. "At first they did nothing with them, then one day I saw that they were all busy drawing wavy, horizontal lines. I wondered what they were trying to do, then it was suddenly borne upon me that they were writing or, to be more accurate, were trying to use their pencils in the same way as I did mine, which was the only way they could conceive of, because I had not yet tried to amuse them with my drawings." He goes on to explain how this affected the villagers. "The majority did this and no more, but the chief had further ambitions." Levi-Strauss would ask the chief questions and the chief would draw the horizontal, wavy lines on the pad given him and then show Claude expecting him to understand the meaning behind the drawings. The chief expected them to convey meaning just as the written words do. The Nambikwara chief went even further with his display of feigned writing skill. When the presents which Levi-Strauss had brought with him to give to the Nambikwara people were handed out, the chief took out his notepad and pretended to check it and conduct the ceremony of gift exchange. He had used writing as a tool for the purpose of attaining power over his tribe in a way that differentiated from his role as chief. "It had not been a question of acquiring knowledge, of remembering or understanding, but rather of increasing the authority and prestige of one individual - or function - at the expense of others."

Levi-Strauss goes on to consider the effects of writing on society: "Writing is a strange invention...If we ask ourselves what great innovation writing was linked to, there is little we can suggest on the technical level, apart from architecture...Such, at any rate, is the typical pattern of development to be observed from Egypt and China, at the time when writing first emerged: it seems to have favoured the exploitation of human beings rather than their enlightenment...My hypothesis, if correct, would oblige us to recognize the fact that the primary function of written communication is to facilitate slavery." He tells later on in the chapter about the Nambikwara that they in fact expelled the chief for his false pretenses of knowledge and using it to gain an unfair advantage over his peers.

Another important hypothesis is made by Levi-Strauss in this chapter of Tristes Tropiques: "Although writing may not have been enough to consolidate knowledge, it was perhaps indispensable for the strengthening of dominion. If we look at the situation nearer home, we see that the systematic development of compulsory education in the European countries goes hand in hand with the extension of military service and proletarianization." This furthers the idea of writing as a tool of power and considers the fact that it has furthered nations' concepts of warfare and class control.

Ong One-Liners

Here are a few one-liners from Orality and Literacy:

"Proverbs from all over the world are rich with observations about this overwhelmingly human phenomenon of speech in its native oral form, about its powers, its beauties, its dangers." (p.9)
"When an often-told oral story is not actually being told, all that exists of it is the potential in certain human beings to tell it." (p.11)
"We have to die to continue living." (p.15)
"Heavy patterning and communal fixed formulas in oral cultures serve some of the purposes of writing in chirographic cultures, but in doing so they of course determine the kind of thinking that can be done, the way experience is intellectually organized." (p.36)
"When all verbal communication must be by direct word of mouth, involved in the give-and-take dynamics of sound, interpersonal relations are kept high - both attractions and, even more, antagonisms." (p.45)
"Nature states no 'facts': these come only within statements devised by human beings to refer to the seamless web of actuality around them." (p.67)
"Man is the umbilicus mundi, the navel of the world." (p.72)

Anamnesis

During our recent class discussion regarding anamnesis or the idea of recollection of another existence, I couldn't help but think of the cartoon film Spirited Away. Spirited Away is written by renowned Japanese animator and director Hayao Miyazaki. This film is incredibly imaginative, ingeniously clever, heartwarming, as well as beautifully written and animated. Many of Miyazaki's pictures investigate complex themes of nature, life, and existence. In this film, he investigates the idea of anamnesis and recollection as the essence of life. Plato spoke of the relationship between the two. 

Meno: "And how are you going to search for [the nature of virtue] when you don't know at all what it is, Socrates? Which of all the things you don't know will you set up as target for your search? And even if you actually come across it, how will you know that it is that thing which you don't know?"

Socrates: "They say that the soul of man is immortal and never perishes, though at one time it makes an end, called dying, and at another is born again...Since the soul is immortal, and has been born many times, she has beheld all things in this world and the next, and there is nothing she has not learnt; so it is not surprising that she can remember what she once knew about virtue and other things. For since all nature is akin, and the soul has learnt all things, there is nothing to prevent her, by recollecting one single thing--what men call 'learning'--discovering all the rest, if her search is untiring and courageous. For learning and inquiry are nothing but recollection."

In Spirited Away Yubaba, the owner of a bathhouse for spirits, takes the names of her workers so that they are unable to recall them and be able to leave. They are indentured because of their inability to remember their lives before they came to work in the bathhouse.

The anamnesis of Haku frees him from slavery to the bathhouse and Yubaba. Chihiro helps awaken him to his prior existence.

 

In the final scenes of the movie, Chihiro is asked to identify her parents who have been transformed into pigs in order to free herself and them and return to the "human world." Her awakening is more literal than that of Haku. After completing the test she is returned to her parents and eventually goes back home. Much of what has happened to her reveals itself as a dream.

Mnemonic Floorplan

I was quite impressed with some of the layouts of the palaces which you guys have posted so I attempted to do a floorplan of my apartment. I had to insert it as a link so hopefully it will work. Will post a new one once assigned with images. This program is super cool. Lets you design in 3d and do landscaping and other neat stuff. Hopefully will add my yard and whatnot later on.

http://pl.an/z93s34