Over the years

Over the years, since the dawn of chirography, as a people brought up within this tradition which we well know as literacy. Although it's only been this way for a rather relatively short amount of time, and since this certain time as a people our perception of the world as we know it has been ill-perceived. This certain time supposedly came around the time of first stories of the Bible, a symbol for the beginning of 'life as we know it' and the creation of the world. It's interesting to look at the Bible from this perspective because it makes it easy to believe that there were people before this chirographic 'beginning of time' because, as Kane says in his prologue, "the ancestors of human species evolved a new organ, called culture: it allowed patterns of behavior to be transmitted variably in stories" (15-16). This idea of culture is a man-made creation and separation from nature which eventually, over the millenia, brings us to the first (and second!) book in the Bible which is "written by agriculturalists" (19). Once we moved "from a forager to a producer economy" (18), that's when culture became valued so highly that people became believers in classism. Being able to stake a claim and having rights over that property led others to believe, let's say those without property, that they had to work, what Kane refers to as "a state of contest," their way up in society. If there's classism then there are those looking up (the lower class), those looking down (the upper class), and those contented (the middle class). Here's something to mull over, with agriculture comes the idea of property; I'll let Kane continue because his words are too clear to best: "A class system arises out of the necessities of agriculture. For agriculture to work, you need to have a concept of property. For a concept of property to work, you need to have a state. For a state to work, you to have armies to defend it. Consequently, developed agricultural societies evolve a new mythology featuring three classes of deities - deities who stand respectively for the functions of priest, farmer, and warrior" (21-22). If and only if you have agriculture then you have property which belongs to your stately ownership, employment, and management. It's hard to think that agriculture, containing idea of property which transformed into this aggregate idea of 'intellectual property' as well, has brought about most of the ills of men, that primitive ill being a 'defense mechanism'. A king must defend his territory, I suppose, or so it seems it must be that way. Then again, I don't want people stealing/using my stuff, physical or intellectual (I mean, at least until I'm finished with it and I've made [or attempted to make] a pretty penny from it!).

So, with that said, here's one more thing to think about concerning the preliterate and literary developments and revolutions of the world:

Oral tradition-->chirography (written word)-->printing press (mass production of written word)-->typography (typed word)-->internet (exponential availability of mass produced -graphics)

Also, do visual aids or pictures belong anywhere in these developments?