a little more McLuhan (& maybe Pynchon) ADDITION

[Mark Kohut]

Forgot this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy

But the OED or another good dictionary is even better....

----- Original Message -----
From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
To: David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
Cc: David Payne <dpayne1912 at hotmail.com>; pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Saturday, August 27, 2011 8:08 PM
Subject: Re: a little more McLuhan (& maybe Pynchon)

David Morris writes:

Right.  And are pictures writing?

On Tue, Aug 23, 2011 at 11:43 PM, David Payne <dpayne1912 at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> "literate" vs. "pre-literate" peoples is gray scale, not an "Us" vs. "Them".
>
> For example:
>
> * Does "literate" mean able to read a newspaper written at an 8th grade (U.S.) level?
>
> * Or does literate mean recognize that an arrow means "this way"?
>
> A genuine question (I know this sounds factious, but I'm truly curious): Is there a test/scale for measuring the richness of one's inner life?

d this, No, representational pictures are not writing. Writing is abstract marks symbolizing...
 
And, for McLuhan, Literate means 'able to read' symbolic forms as words. Words as forms that symbolize. 
It is qualitatively different than being illiterate. It is the traditional meaning, the way the anthropogoists and sociologists
used it when they found 'pre-literate' societies...before it added a lot of metaphoric meanings (largely in our lifetimes, interestingly) such
as 'emotional' literacy, 'financial literacy' etc.    or had the meaning of 'degree of reading comprehension' added to it.....
 
It has morphed interestingly, worth an essay,,,,, 

 
 
 

From: David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
To: David Payne <dpayne1912 at hotmail.com>
Cc: Pynchon-l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Wednesday, August 24, 2011 9:37 AM
Subject: Re: a little more McLuhan (& maybe Pynchon)


For McLuhan, who started this the answer is No...writing is phonetic abstraction, marks signifying the form of words.  Helen Keller famously learning
the word for water might be a touchstone example.....

He uses 'literacy' the old-fashioned way as well. He uses it the way the anthropolgists and sociologists did when they found and wrote of pre-literate peoples., people who did not read symbolic marks as words..... 


 
Right.  And are pictures writing?

On Tue, Aug 23, 2011 at 11:43 PM, David Payne <dpayne1912 at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> "literate" vs. "pre-literate" peoples is gray scale, not an "Us" vs. "Them".
>
> For example:
>
> * Does "literate" mean able to read a newspaper written at an 8th grade (U.S.) level?
>
> * Or does literate mean recognize that an arrow means "this way"?
>
> A genuine question (I know this sounds factious, but I'm truly curious): Is there a test/scale for measuring the richness of one's inner life?