I want to work on trying to think more like a marathon runner.
Perhaps it’s the ADHD, perhaps it’s the situation I’m in.
I tell my kids all the time of The Tortoise and the Hare. I say to myself, I’m not the hare because I’m not cocky and rarely nap. But…
Maybe I’m hare-like. I do these insane short bursts. I do everything. I run and I run so fast that I crash. My crashes are mostly mentally and emotionally, which my wife loves 🤨
Also, when I’m in my particular position I say yes to everything, what else am I doing? I make a mountain pile on my shoulders so big… then a subtle wind from life, let’s say a little girls upcoming 4th birthday party, and down it all crumbles.
It’s coming along. I’m enjoying some of the interesting things I’m connecting with. Still not sure how to tie a bow on all of this. However, That’s the reason for the exercise, to explore.
ActivityPub
I’ve also continued my exploration of what could be an ActivtyPub platform for me to tinker on all AP idea’s. I’ve taken months to hunt and try a bunch of possibilities out. They are all are really good in their own way, but to me, feel like I’m strong arming what I want it to do. So… I’ve started and stopped and started and stopped, and now I’m started again to do the silly thing, and build something for me and my own brain.
Using PHP – because everyone has a server for PHP. Plus it’s the simplest for my hosting and my budget, which should be no more than I’m already spending on hosting.
Using Slim PHP – because I want to keep this light. Laravel and Symphony are great, but overkill at the moment. If this becomes “a thing”, then a rebuild would be in the cards, but that’s a 2.0 or 3.0 problem.
ActivityPub first – this is where I’ve found my mental problems. Many implementations feel like you’re always fighting some dissonance with a core foundation. It’s an extension, a plugin, a layer it on top of.. all of which work… but… not quite what I’m looking for.
In oral culture, we repeat a lot. A lot of what we say, we say again and again.
It’s needed. In a long oral rendition, there is nothing to remind you of that one important thing you needed to remember. So, according to Ong, in oral culture’s, we say it again but in a different way.
While my very very small kids may repeat themselves, my observations are for the most part in a single instance, we don’t do all that much repetition.
Where I think things get a little interesting, is perhaps our interactions aren’t isn’t long enough to require the kind of repetition that primary oral cultures required.
Perhaps our fleeting nature requires more copia than repetition, or perhaps repetition in new technological ways?
Copious Repetition
Through various uses of repetitive symbols, linguistic formulas, mnemonics, and other means and technology we do repeat ourselves over and over again.
In rhetoric, copia, is richness and amplification for stylistic goals. And boy oh boy I think we are copious. We are barraged on a daily basis: “Buy now”, “smash like”, “now this”, “welcome back”.
Neurologically loud and grandiose media and people. Our technology is built around copia.
Every fashion, every meme, every song, every book, every perspective open and available and on repeat through the internet in some form or fashion.
The callback.
All this talk about repetition and copia, has me thinking about a particular rhetoric device that want to look more into. “The callback”
TV shows, podcasts, movies now make a game of it. Bringing not only phrases but all things into repeat. Testing our minds with a line or movement from the first Iron Man repeating into the final Avengers or referring to the audience always as Tracey.
Designing a way to create a repeatable and special call and response that engrains you to a tribe so that others who was it, had no comprehension of it’s meaning.
It’s a very modern and complex use of repetition.
Is this like secret handshakes, and symbols. Before literacy we use to have many secret societies filled with rituals and artifacts that could be used or displayed in public with only this “in the know” able to understand.
Recap
But back to my point. Let me repeat. Are we redundant or “copious”?
Scroll through a social media stream. Watch yet another variation of Minecraft YouTube video. Watch the sequel or the prequal, or the remake of the sequels prequal, and you tell me.
“The elements of orally based thought and expression tend to not be so much simple integers as clusters of integers…” He goes on to explain it’s clusters & phrases. His examples are “not the soldier, but the brave soldier not the princess, but the beautify princess.”
Oral cultures tend to be consistent in using consistent descriptive adjectives. Not simply saying a soldier or princess. This doesn’t exclude the opportunity for an alternate adjectives such as, his examples, “braggart soldier” or “unhappy princess” but the default position is this aggregate term and default aggregate repeated over and over until normalized.
These might not really ring so true today in terms of simple descriptive adjectives. However when you expand the language to longer phrases, and acronyms, things start to become interesting.
YOLO – You only live once
FOMO – fear of missing out
MAGA – make america great again
GOAT – greatest of all time
BFF – best friends forever
LMAO – laugh my ass off
LOL – laugh our loud.
ROFL – roll on the floor laughing
PITA – pain in the ass
TMI – too much information
NSFW – not safe for work
All of these can be used otherwise yet we don’t.
I could reveal some thing intimate and use alternate words, but I don’t. I say TMI, keeping the phrase intact and crystalized.
Each acronym or phrase cannot be altered. FOLO is not a thing.
… rather than analytic
Now comes the analytic part. For Ong, the argument was simply put that “Without a writing system, breaking up thought – that is, analysis – is a high risk process.” He then drops-the-mic with a quote from Levi-Stauss, “the savage [i.e. oral] mind totalizes.”
Essentially he’s saying that oral thought cannot piece meal a concept. It can not look at something in isolation but must have context, inter-connection, situation, as a whole. Saying “a friend” would be like…
It would be an unfinished sentence to an oral mind and require the formula and some form of aggregate language.
Is that to say, if I say “best friend” would an oral mind place it in the default position and complete the phrase adding “forever”? If I were to mention “laughing” would there be mental chaos because someone isn’t sure if I’m doing it “out loud” or “rolling on the floor” from it?
Perhaps the term itself is negated and ignored? Thinking, “they aren’t really friends because Nick never clarified it was best or forever.” Or, “He didn’t ‘literally’ laugh because he didn’t say it was out loud.”
Maybe for the aliterate a little analysis is allowed? But perhaps not too much.
Empathetic and Participatory Rather than Objectively Distanced
“For an oral culture learning or knowing mean achieving close, empathetic, communal identification with the known… Writing separates the knower from the known.”
Meaning that literacy can give distance and objectivity to a topic, to a perspective, to a way of life.
Reading a book ,the thoughts of someone else meld with our own. We get to wear their skin for a moment in our silence.
Writing, is an externalization of thought. Seeing our words on paper or screen vents them from our interior creating a reflective mirror; a recording – it’s us, but not. Through it, we have the opportunity to be critical of ourselves, like a mirror that lets me be critical of some of my t-shirt choices.
And as we delve into our oral nature… we remove these moments of distance.
We entrench ourselves into thoughts and opinions. We build up walls and listen only to the songs we know, read only the things we already read.
Does it feel like the world is being objective?
I can tell you it doesn’t for me. If feels, to me, that people are hunkering into their camps and doubling down.
We blame social media. That it has given us our rose coloured glasses. It force feeds us biased media & ads base on demographics, personas, geolocation and algorithms. It does so to the point where we don’t see anything outside of our little bubble.
But… perhaps…
Perhaps even if it did, would we choose to see/hear it? Aliterate means we can read ( a little ) and choose not to. We could learn about someone else yet, like reading, choose not to.
Perhaps we are all losing our objectivity to even care?
Debate requires objectivity. Debate requires some sense of distance from a topic to allow ourselves to be open.
Instead, as Ong points out, as an oral culture we start to identify with the known. We become the perspective and anything else, becomes more and more foreign to us.
The Actor
Is the actor ( or performer ), the only one who has the capacity and the tools in an oral or aliterate culture to truly step in and out of someone else’s perspective? They have, or are working on the ability to empathize and identify with someone foreign. They walk, talk and even breath like someone else for a moment. The goods ones, in my opinion, push themselves further and further from themselves.
Is that part of our collective fascination and admiration of them?
I’m going to have to go off and ponder that like this for a few moments…
AI photo prompt: “picture of someone, shadow only, dramatically thinking alone on a stage in front of an empty theater”
I’ve been digging into a thought for the past week starring out into the void wondering what to do next.
With Decentralized/Federated Social Media, I’m seeing a lot of discussions on how do we want to run ourselves? Ethical, rights, power and other conversations all around and to do with Governance.
Before I do continue, here’s something I use as my framework
My Web Pyramid
Like Maslow’s Pyramid, here’s how I picture the evolution of the web.
Web 1 – Media (publishing) Web 2 – Communication* (2 way communication) Web 3 – Economies Web 4 – Governance Web 5 – Citizenship
And like Maslow’s theory, these layers aren’t independent, and we are always in flux as we go up and down depending on social need.
* Update: I previously have called Web 2 “Community”, but I’m rejigging that thought a bit.
Decentralized?
Could this pyramid be more about a decentralized, autonomous, or independent web? Could this be about scale and accessibility? 🤷
Not just the ability to publish, but at an economical scale that it’s easy and cheap for one to publish. Just like it’s easy to discuss, or now… make your own digital currency.
One of the cons in all of governance is the time and effort. And that’s where I’m curious about the tech that could help. Where could it help? But some of these are it’s tricky and at scale costly.
AI
Summarize all the legalese
Get updates to legislation
Keep everyone aligned
Ask for advise and next steps
Seek feedback from
Decentralized and transparent ( open )
polling and decision making
identity (this one is not really a can we… it’s more like which methods)
law & legislation management
Creative Commons but for governance
Creative Commons helps me understand copyright in a way that made it accessible. It gave me tools and options I never thought of. Governance feel the same in a way.
Where does one start?
What are the options?
How do I pick methods and models?
Can I cherry pick or modify?
Is there a common resource option to discuss
Can we make it a bit more relatable?
What it all means with Orality
As we shift into an aliterate world we’re going to need to all understand governance a lot more.
When England reached a literate tipping point ( 50% ) the monarchy changed dramatically. At the time of the formation of The United States it was most literate societies on the planet.
Our governance will shift dramatically again. It’s time we have a good foundation or understanding when it does.
All that energy last month to mix it up, took me down. I was doing ok but then snap – damn you ADHD!
I, of course haven’t done nothing, just different things:
Convert a newer/older laptop to Ubuntu
Remembered Drupal; saw they were trying to make a shift to simplify ( no doubt from all the “wordpress hi jinks” ) and started to remember how powerful it was when I replaced my college radio station’s site with it… that was a fun couple years.
Lot’s of work, and internal work weeknotes, with the hopes that someone, oh someone, will go on the ride with me. But, it’s just me sitting alone in the park.
Oh ya, and fighting f*!#’n mice! The scourge of Langley!
It’s insanity! My house is a mix of towels under door jams, everything is in a box. At first you’re like, wow it’s organized, and then you’re like, which box was that in, and then your like, F!*#’n boxes!
I’m not really much of an handy man, so the idea of figuring out what to do, is kind of super monumental at the moment.
Then you think you’ve done enough, and then after the kids go to bed 4 of them come out of nowhere and run around like crazy teens, while your wife looses her mind, and the rest of the night, your trying to figure out not only how to get these guys out, but also do it in a way that your partner, who is now curled up in a ball mumbling “make them go away”, doesn’t fully break.
Where was I? I’ve forgotten where I was in reflecting on Ong’s Psychodynamics of Orality with our current culture. So this recap is partly for me as it is you.
It was coined “secondary orality” because I don’t think anyone realized how close could it get to a primary oral culture?
In the thick of academia and logic, it’s hard to imagine. However, with recent events unfolding before our eyes, I think we’re realizing, perhaps it’s closer that we thought.
