in action. To act without reacting, without involvement, is the 
peculiar advantage of Western literate man.

     The story of The Ugly American  describes the endless 
succession of blunders achieved by visual and civilized 
Americans when confronted with the tribal and auditory 
cultures of the East. As a civilized UNESCO experiment, running 
water—with its lineal organization of pipes—was installed 
recently in some Indian villages. Soon the villagers requested 
that the pipes be removed, for it seemed to them that the 
whole social life of the village had been impoverished when it 
was no longer necessary for all to visit the communal well. To 
us the pipe is a convenience. We do not think of it as culture or 
as a product of literacy, any more than we think of literacy as 
changing our habits, our emotions, or our perceptions. To 
nonliterate people, it is perfectly obvious that the most