Posts by Jack Sherefkin

Literacy is good, illiteracy is bad. Literacy is the foundation of civilization and culture. Who doubts it? History, however, tells another story. The Incas, for example, were not literate, yet had a sophisticated culture.1 Instead of writing, they used a system of knotted cords called quipus to store information and send messages. When literacy came to the Greeks, it did not create a culture, rather, it put into writing a pre-existing culture. The main aspects of classical Greek culture — its architecture and poetry (Homer's Iliad and Odyssey were originally oral compositions), political structure, and the