🚀 go-pugleaf

[tedrick@ernie.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP ]
>>>The modern man is now enlightened to the fact that what plato
>>>says is logically inconsistent,

>Sometimes inconsistent. However the clever trickery in Plato's
>arguments led directly to the formal logic of Aristotle (so that
>such sophistry could be refuted).

>In addition, Plato pinpointed very exactly many problems facing
>man and society both then and now. (My favorite is whether it is
>better to be a good man, or to appear to be a good man). One can
>trace many current ideas and viewpoints back to the Greek thinkers.

While agreeing with all of this, I think it does not quite answer
the  original  poster - it only establishes the fact that the an-
cients achieved a lot, and deserve respect - but  not  that  they
are  still  worth  reading.  It  leaves  the possibility that the
moderns, standing on the old giants'  shoulders,  invariably  see
further and express what they see clearer.

This is not, however, the case: somehow, in some areas,  progress
fails to occur. Though computation methods of 3 centuries ago may
be outdated, Plato and Homer and the Bible aren't - it is a plain
truth, established by reading them. And Aristophanes, even now,
is *much* funnier than Johnny Carson.

>The technical developments of the modern  world  have  advantages
>and  disadvantages.  One  of  my favorite examples is writing and
>printing.  Being able to record information  and  disseminate  it
>has  obvious  uses.  But  one disadvantage is that since it is no
>longer necessary to retain information inside the human  mind  in
>order to pass it from generation to generation, the great capaci-
>ty for memorization of vast quantities of information demonstrat-
>ed by the ancients is withering away. In some sense modern man is
>devolving as a consequence of his technical advancement.

A very good point; and  there's  another  disadvantage.  We  copy
things  mechanically; they don't improve in the process. But oral
tradition, folklore, gets edited while it is passed on;  and,  on
the  average,  it  gets improved. It is a process akin to natural
selection. 

This cultural evolution depended on individual creativity. Every-
one  participated  actively.  In our culture, only wisecracks are
developed like this. But TV shows, the staples of modern culture,
are  produced  once,  and  then  passed  in millions of identical
copies to the screens watched by millions of  passive  consumers.
Books  are  a little different, because the reader is more active
than the viewer; but still mostly passive and dependent.

It is not merely memory that gets atrophied -  it  is  creativity
and  independence,  the  mind  and the heart, all the things that
make us human. 

 ... Well, at least the net is active. Here, in the electronic
 village, a new form of folk culture may be arising in our
 presence. It is still immature, but let's keep this baby alive.

		Jan Wasilewsky