Is It Possible to Have a Civilisation without Writing - Essay Example

Is it possible to have a civilisation without writing? Blavatsky (2003), in an impassioned dis on civilizations, asked: How can there be civilizations without literature in some form, without annals or chronicles? (p. 54) She argued that those crude societies that refused the knowledge of writing are credited with barbarism instead of culture. Robinson (2002) is in agreement as well. His point is that without writing, a civilization does not have a means to propagate itself, much less see its survival because oral societies cannot be as knowledgeable, lacking the perennial truth conveyed solely by the written word. He stressed that “writing is among the greatest invention in human history, perhaps the greatest invention, since it made history possible.” (p. 21) The above observations are faulty, at best, if not outright ignorant because they are not true. The fact is that, not every civilization relied on the written word. There were sophisticated societies to have emerged, expanded and thrived for hundreds of years, without any form of writing. The thesis of this paper is summed up by Rousseau who declared: Since God is so good, as to reveal his mind to man, why should there be any occasion for an interpreter? I can never conceive, that what every man is obliged to know, is confined to books, and that he who can neither come at those books, not at people that understand them, shall be punished for involuntary ignorance. For ever books! What madness. (p. 79) The Incas Spanning the west of the South American Andes, a large empire was built by the Incas in the middle of thirteenth century. Their form of government and their society was sophisticated characterized by a vast bureaucracy, strong administration, crafts, advanced engineering and communication. Out of all the Incan achievements, it is surprising to know that they do not have any form of writing. What they have was a system of accounting based on knotted strings called quipo. The simplest quipo has a main cord of colored cotton or sometimes wool, from which knotted cords are suspended with knots formed into cluster at some distance from each other: each cluster has a number of knots from 1 to 9, and a cluster of, say, 4 followed by one of 2 and one of 8 knots represents 428. (Struik 1987, p. 16) The Incans have also created their highly sophisticated calendars, which is another vital tool for any complex society that had to coordinate the activities of thousands or millions of people to ensure they paid their taxes on time. What the quipo and the calendars reveal is that, writing is not required in order to build and support an advanced civilization with a sophisticated bureaucracy and culture, efficiently addressing the organizational problems posed by leading dense populations, the need for conflict resolutions, the complex division of labor and social structure. Persian Civilization The development of the Persian Empire from a mere tribe in the Iranian wilderness to a magnificent empire covering much of the known world during their time is a lesson for those who do not believe that a great nation, with outstanding political, cultural, social and religious structures could emerge without writing. Initially, Persians were rude mountain peasants who lead a settled agricultural life, with simple institutions, no writing or literature, but with stirring memories of their past. As they toiled their fields, they wonder and tell about their Aryan ancestors and of the ancient prophet whose faith they held. (Breasted 2003, p. 180) About fifty years after the fall of Nineveh, Cyrus was born and became the king of the little Persian kingdom called Anshan. He was able to unite all the Persian tribes and Persia, with its army of peasants, conquered one civilization after another – the Medes, Egyptian, the Assyrians, and even the Greek paid tribute. The conquered civilizations greatly influenced the Persians – their architecture, customs, their language – but there remains the fact that the Persian has never mastered to write their own tongue. Even during the peak of the empire, writing was in Aramaic and is performed only for the conduct of governing the vast conquered lands. (Breasted, p. 183) Civilization and Writing As writing, for some, is considered as prerequisite for civilization, it is helpful to define its very concept and determine exactly what writing is worth in this context. Thomas Meadows devoted a large part of his book about some affairs of China to the definition of the civilization. He posited definition from a scientific perspective and to quote: civilization is the aggregate substitution, by man, of efficient moral and intellectual agencies for the physical in his struggle with animate and inanimate nature. (p. 501) There are those who emphasize the cultural dimension of civilization, which most Western thinkers are fond of because they emphasize culture as progress towards western civilization. This conception of civilization is rooted in Montesquieu’s evolutionary theory of a three-stage history that culminates in civilization. (Arneil 2007, p. 52) Undoubtedly, there are numerous definitions available, many of which vary according to the biases of their proponents. A general and more practical definition, however, which this paper will use, was given by Blaha (2002), who stated that it is a society or a large group of individuals who have a set of shared beliefs or culture and who participate in a social organization with mores, and standards of conduct and social intercourse. (p. 14) We could go on and on disagreeing about what details to add to this definition, but the fact remains that this fundamental definition is clear and we would recognize it as we see them and, hence, it will suffice for this paper’s purpose. How does writing figure in a society or a civilization? Certainly, it is very important. The most important of which is in regard to sharing the culture. Scribes enable a civilization to preserve, organize and expand knowledge and to pass it to others and the future generation through the written form. In addition to this, it allows governments and religion to conduct their affairs more efficiently. For instance, governments can issue laws and clearly define the mores and rules that would regulate society. Also, writing can identify their boundary lines with other states or civilizations or allow priests to administer their flock as populations grew and required more organization. Out of the all these, one can see the writing is very important in a civilization. However, one also sees that it is not indispensable. There is the case of the Incans, the Persians, among other advanced societies that have littered the globe, made their mark, and proved how their communities were built, evolved and acquire a degree of advancement without a system of writing. Modern Period An interesting insight was offered by Marcel Detienne (2007) who argued that writing or the absence of it might not have affected much of the ancient civilizations but it is, certainly, is indispensable for civilizations from the eighteenth century onwards. Her argument for this is that, without writing a civilization cannot possibly flourish and continue to thrive if its people remained illiterate. (p. 5) This is because, at this period, the written text constituted the essential mark of historical societies, the kind that made history, about which historians had to write. In her terms, those people who can’t write are non-civilized. In Detienne’s point of view, one sees that civilization requirements is a mold straight of Montesquieu’s book. Here, the Western civilization became the standard for other societies to measure up to. But, this should not be the case, especially if one has to consider the definition that has been previously stated. Today, there are still societies and civilizations, if you may, that exist without the knowledge of writing. The Amerindians are a case in point. They could have flourished and expanded had they been left alone. The Iroquois, for instance, might well have grown very powerful within just a few years, and that, as Fremion (2002) put it, “we cannot be sure that white colonization would have proceeded with such ease, had the Iroquois managed to implement their expansionist plans. (p. 36) Conclusion All in all, writing is not an indispensable factor in the emergence of a civilization. The various experiences of strong and mighty empires with no system of literature are testament to this fact. To the present, there are still societies that have survived without any form of writing not because, they do not have the means, but that it is part of their culture and it has persisted event at this age of the information technology. With or without writing culture can be shared. It is also important to underscore that the possession of the writing technology does not guarantee the longevity or the survival of a civilization. The Greek, the Egyptian, the Babylonian civilizations all have met their ends and the power of the pen could not halt their demise. Some might argue that without writing, we would have known very little of what transpired in their societies back then. But, how come we know so much about the Persians and the Incans, if there are no tomes, books and scrolls available for us to read about the Cyrus the Great, or the Incan pyramids, and these civilizations’ cultures. The Koran has survived for years because it has been orally transmitted from generation to generation. In the discourse about civilization, it is imperative to shed any form of Western bias. It does not mean that because the Western civilization and culture is superior because it so evolved, cultivated or because they read and write, its characteristics must now become the standards for what civilizations should be. There are many things that people exaggerate about the roles in- and what constitutes civilization. But, again, we society, culture, and cultivation in a community we encounter and this goes the same with or without their writing system. References Arneil, Barbara. 2007. Sexual justice/cultural justice: critical perspectives in political theory and practice. New York: Taylor and Francis. Blaha, Stephen. 2002. The life cycle of civilizations. Auburn, NH: Pingree-Hill Publishing. Blavatsky, Helene. 2003. Secret Doctrine Synthesis of Science, Religion. Kessinger Publishing. Breasted, James. Ancient Times or a History of the Early World. Kessinger Publishing. Detienne, Marcel. 2007. The Greeks and us: a comparative anthropology of Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Polity Press. Fremion, Yves. 2002. Orgasms of history: 3000 years of spontaneous insurrection. Edinburgh: AK Press. Meadows, Thomas. 1856. The Chinese and their rebellions: viewed in connection with their national philosophy, ethics, legislation, and administration. To which is added, an essay on civilization and its present state in the East and West. London: Smith, Elder and Co. Robinson, Andrew. 2002. Lost languages: the enigma of the worlds undeciphered scripts. McGraw-Hill. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 1763. Emilus: or, an Essay on Education. J. Nourse and P. Vaillant. Struik, Dirk. 1987. A concise history of mathematics. New York: Dover Publications. Read More