Communication in Orality and the Advent of Writing

The development of human society over the long term is affected by the speed and accuracy with which ideas are transferred from one individual or group to another. In the Old Stone Age, or Paleolithic period, such a process was slow since communication in the sense of physical movement was slow. And with oral communication, virtually all transfer had to be face-to-face, a matter of constant conversations over time. Nevertheless, ideas were exchanged and human life slowly changed, for example, from using one type of stone tool to another in parallel ways throughout the world. Of course, one reason for this commonality could be the intrinsic logic of development, in which intergenerational communication would also be important, but the intergroup transfer of ideas has been of overwhelming significance in much of human history.

How is it that nonutilitarian ideas, for example, even about witchcraft and sorcery, about mystical aggression, are so similar in preindustrial societies in many parts of the world? The standard answer would be phrased by reference to some version of the idea of "primitive mentality," that these ideas were appropriate to "primitive societies." At a very general level, such a contention may be valid but circular. It follows a line of thinking that sees similar environmental conditions (for example, in hunting and gathering economies) as producing similar sets of ideas. That is a tenable position. But the degree of similarity is the crucial issue. These ideas of witchcraft, like the idea of the alphabet, seem very close to one another in contexts where the possibility of alternative conceptions seems to be wide open. So there is not simply the question of the general appropriateness of ideas to a particular set of socioeconomic circumstances but of the communication of more specific notions over time, possibly in this case internally from a common source.

A clearer case is that of the folktale. The collections of Stith Thompson trace distinct thematic similarities over many parts of the world, some of which, like the Cinderella stories, show considerable resemblances over wide areas. It is highly unlikely that such tales have emerged independently, given the common features, nor yet that their distribution reflects some early wanderings of peoples. Rather it is surmised that they represent the transmission of particular stories from one community to another by travelers or by itinerant storytellers, who provide a precise mechanism for their circulation. Naturally such stories have to be "acceptable" to the recipients, but acceptability does not mean that they have to reflect in any precise way the sociocultural conditions of those who listen and adapt the stories. In northern Ghana, folktales incorporated the notion of chiefship (nalo) even among chiefless groups who had never had, or had rejected, the institution but who knew that it existed in neighboring states. One aspect of the folktale was therefore "imaginary" in some communities, embodying ideas of authority that they did not accept as part of their own way of life. So such tales were unlikely to have arisen independently but rather by some process of intergroup communication since their thematic content was not functionally or structurally integrated with the cultures themselves. In this case intercultural communication occurred in oral cultures by means of a specific mechanism, the traveler or the wandering "teller of tales."

That process continues to be of great significance in the spread of ideas and information even in written cultures, where wandering scholars, past and present, are important elements in the process of communication. Physical movement is still of great significance in the early twenty-first century. Despite electronic means of communication that supplement and could perhaps eliminate them, conferences proliferate, not simply as an excuse for academic tourism; in certain fields at least they are seen as ways of gaining access to the latest ideas, or perhaps to the creators of those ideas. In other words they are seen as contributing to the exchange of knowledge. Above all they serve to set up personalized networks that have the function of leading to collaboration between individuals and groups working on similar topics, contacts that serve to facilitate the flow of ideas by establishing informal (oral) communication to supplement the more formal and more widespread type made possible by the use of the written word.

Such international conferences, involving an increased tempo and range of contact, depend upon the development of new modes of transport, especially relatively cheap air travel that is changing ways of life in other less formal ways. Whatever doubts may be expressed about travel broadening the mind, it has certainly led to some shifts in terms of everyday behavior, such as food and drink. Even if mass tourism has not led to any very evident changes of a more conceptual kind, it seems likely that the opportunities for the youth of Europe to travel to India or Nepal has resulted in an increased interest in the religions of those areas, and hence in Buddhist, Islamic, or Hindu philosophical notions. Vegetarianism and a different attitude toward the slaughter of animals, and to the nature of the boundary between "us" and "them," becomes an important part of the belief systems of the Western world that had hitherto been largely characterized by its addiction to the eating of meat. For such persons the notion of animal rights includes their right to stay alive.