Re: The Alphabet vs the Goddess

[JIMCHEVAL -at- AOL -dot- COM]

In a message dated 98-10-05 10:22:04 EDT, jaikens -at- ZOOMIT -dot- COM writes:

<< The few illustrated manuscripts I have looked at were full of
 illustrations. Medieval iconography also suggests that images were very
 important communication tools, especially since few could read.
  >>
This also goes to the heart of what the lecturer meant by 'our society'.
Reading, at the time of the documents he refers to, was a skill nearly as
specialized as programming is today.  One reason churches are filled with
images (never mind the Biblical strictures on graven images) is that that's
how people learned the stories - by viewing them with some oral commentary to
put them in context.

Then there's all those cave paintings.

People have always learned most easily through images.  It's just that, until
modern storage and reproduction techniques were developed, there were no
efficient ways to rapidly create and transmit them.  Writing - which largely
derived from pictures anyway - was effectively a way of compressing images
into a simplistic code that then was used to express more and more abstract
concepts.

Precious as it is to us, it is largely an historical accident which may take
completely different forms as it becomes simpler and simpler to reproduce the
images themselves rather than their coded substitutes.  But there is nothing
new about the human preference for images.  Quite the opposite.

Jim Chevallier
North Hollywood

Now updated! Chez Jim: Jim Chevallier's home page -
http://www.gis.net/~jimcheval

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