This post’s title could seem utterly stupid to some folks. Don’t we have reams of evidence that writing’s history is properly recorded in volumes of written work?
I’m a writer and that last sentence was my morning giggle 🙂 ‘Course, my favorite word is “Word”…
I’ve spent a few decades devoted to the study of various sciences. I’ve learned that humans haven’t quite reached their peak of perfection as a species. From my own deep study, I feel confident that most mainstream science is way off-beam–playing with elegant mathematics that’s used, not to scientifically prove, but to academically justify a very mistaken view of how the universe works. This doesn’t mean I think the scientists are insincere. Even a madman can be sincere in their beliefs…
If I’m right, if even scientists are not getting it right, what about the sincere people who write about the history of writing?
Some of you may already have realized that an attitude like mine–a point of view that’s set against most of the experts of our culture–could lead to a very hopeless view of human learning and progress. It could lead to that except for my belief that humanity is still growing, will someday reach a level of understanding that’s much more certain. Until then, we’ll find a lot of funny things if we go looking for true knowledge about writing’s history.
One of the more outstanding things you can find if you start Googling “history of writing” is Wikipedia’s entry. Right at the top of the article, these words appear: “This article needs additional citations for verification.” One of the root meanings of the word citation is: “written notice to appear”…
A written article about the history of writing needs additional written notices before is can be verified? Whew!!
Two things stand out if you look into the written record of the history of writing. Our earliest writing ancestors have left us some amazing accounts of massive wars in the sky that brought great suffering on earth. To me, the most amazing thing about such accounts is that, without any way to get together to make sure their stories agreed, writers in widely separated areas of the Earth all wrote essentially the same things. Makes ya wonder, eh?
The other outstanding piece of the puzzle of the history of writing is that another large chunk of it is full of information on how to make the best beer.
O.K. Our earliest fellow writers were drunk and telling fabulous tales.
Now, this is something I can believe 🙂
If your whole economic and social structure revolves around raising and eating grain (with a side dish of meat) and you wake up one day and there are titanic thunderbolts in the sky, arching back and forth between the planetary gods of your people, raining hot ash and pukey fumes, why not get good and drunk on fermented liquid grain and write it all down. Hell, maybe some writer in the distant future will find your story and make an academic industry that gets good funding to pretend they know what really happened………
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