>>212599293
More on people becoming more forgetful due to writing:
Socrates notices this in Phaedra, 14, 274.
>"The story goes that Thamus said many things to Theuth in praise or blame of the various arts, which it would take too long to repeat; but when they came to the letters, [274e] “This invention, O king,” said Theuth, “will make the Egyptians wiser and will improve their memories; for it is an elixir of memory and wisdom that I have discovered.” But Thamus replied, “Most ingenious Theuth, one man has the ability to beget arts, but the ability to judge of their usefulness or harmfulness to their users belongs to another; [275a] and now you, who are the father of letters, have been led by your affection to ascribe to them a power the opposite of that which they really possess.
"For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory. Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them. You have invented an elixir not of memory, but of reminding; and you offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom, for they will read many things without instruction and will therefore seem [275b] to know many things, when they are for the most part ignorant and hard to get along with, since they are not wise, but only appear wise."
So the stupid neopagan is pedantically correct in that everybody today is more stupid, and not just the Hellenes, due to technological conveniences that make us not exercise the thoughts that grow the brain. We no longer need to memorize tens of regional dialects, sources of food and water, the names of hundreds of people in our tribes and warbands, how to make bronze, how to predict the weather using the stats, etc. that the average man needed to know or else he would be killed.
7/10/2025, 12:40:45 AM
No.212598021
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