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08321_Field_TCGG T86.txt
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1996-04-10
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mechanistic technology that renders us so helpless and inept in
handling the new electric technology. The new physics is an
auditory domain and long-literate society is not at home in the
new physics, nor will it ever be.
This, of course, is to overlook the utter discrepancy
between the phonetic alphabet and any other kind of writing
whatever. Only the phonetic alphabet makes a break between
eye and ear, between semantic meaning and visual code; and
thus only phonetic writing has the power to translate man from
the tribal to the civilized sphere, to give him an eye for an ear.
The Chinese culture is considerably more refined and perceptive
than the Western world has ever been. But the Chinese are
tribal, people of the ear. “Civilization” must now be used
technically to mean detribalized man for whom the visual
values have priority in the organization of thought and action.