Oral tradition vs writings, which one is more crucial to cultural continuation?

[bushbush]

This is a debate branching out from this thread.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=228759 (last page)

My view is that writings, especially survival of a certain written language (or at least still being able to translate it) is a much more important way of preserving culture over time. Oral tradition is important and many things can be passed down over time (folklore, legends, myth being very important). However, they are vulnerable to being lost over the ages (due to war, death, or simply, fading memories) and they are often less complex due to humans' limitation in memory. One example is the tireless work by scholars to record native indians' folklores, which are passed down over the ages. With their languages gradually being lost and without extensive writing system, these cultural traditions face extinction.

in contrast, writings can record much more information, in greater complexity and be preserved for the ages to read. With the helping of printing press, they are almost invulnerable to destruction that could easily wipe out oral traditions. Today we can study roman, greek, indian, chinese, muslim and other great civilizations' classics written ages ago not by oral tradition, but by their writings. Until we invent time traveling, writings are the most important carrier of culture through history.

[Burnum]

The absence of Writing in oral societies limits the development of complex ideas and the that Societal institution that are dependent on them.

[cenkiss]

Oral tales change over the ages.People most likely want to tell different things in their tales,but now we hear them very differently.

[antaeus]

Oral tales change over the ages.People most likely want to tell different things in their tales,but now we hear them very differently.

this isn't necessarily a bad thing.. cultural change happens over time, so does the way a society interprets it's stories. they change - like fashion, art etc - to remain relevant to a changing society. in this respect i think that oral histories and stories are just as important to a culture as written stories because they reflect social change.

i think we're living in an interesting time right now for oral histories.. because of the internet, oral stories have gone from being small locally relevant tales to having the ability to be globally important. you could look at internet memes for example as a kind of oral history that's being transmitted through new media... social networking, web 2.0, youtube, blogging and twitter have taken the informal story to an unprecedented audience. all these media forms rely on the classic transmission of knowledge through interpersonal conversation and represent a sea change in the way we share our oral stories.

[bushbush]

i think we're living in an interesting time right now for oral histories.. because of the internet, oral stories have gone from being small locally relevant tales to having the ability to be globally important. you could look at internet memes for example as a kind of oral history that's being transmitted through new media... social networking, web 2.0, youtube and twitter have taken the informal story to an unprecedented audience.

you bet, 4chan is the new Thucydides.

[cenkiss]

this isn't necessarily a bad thing.. cultural change happens over time, so does the way a society interprets it's stories. they change - like fashion, art etc - to remain relevant to a changing society. in this respect i think that oral histories and stories are just as important to a culture as written stories because they reflect social change.

i think we're living in an interesting time right now for oral histories.. because of the internet, oral stories have gone from being small locally relevant tales to having the ability to be globally important. you could look at internet memes for example as a kind of oral history that's being transmitted through new media... social networking, web 2.0, youtube, blogging and twitter have taken the informal story to an unprecedented audience. all these media forms rely on the classic transmission of knowledge through interpersonal conversation and represent a sea change in the way we share our oral stories.

I think they are important too.I did not say they were unnecessary.But when they change we can't know what they wanted,how they lived in that age.We only know that their grandchildren have changed their grandparents' stories.

[bushbush]

I think they are important too.I did not say they were unnecessary.But when they change we can't know what they wanted,how they lived in that age.We only know that their grandchildren have changed their grandparents' stories.

indeed, imagine the romans and greeks did not left us any written history...what we would be hearing about them then? how come oral history transmit those crucial information?

I can use a real life example to illustrate your concern that the changing of oral history over the ages can disrupt objective study.

The figure of Cao Cao in chinese history is an interesting case. We have history books written by professional historians around his time to document his acts. But these were read by elites. In the general public, over the ages, the tales of Cao Cao evolved through operas, tales, myth, legends transmitted across the land. These became a key part of the novel Romance of Three Kingdom. Comparing the portryal of the historical Cao Cao based on contemporary work and fictional Cao Cao based on popular history, you get two vastly different pictures and the fictional Cao Cao has a seriously biased and often incorrect portrayal of the man. Now imagine we did not have the written history survived. Wouldn't we be left with a twisted and flawed picture of a crucial figure in history?

[antaeus]

I think they are important too.I did not say they were unnecessary.But when they change we can't know what they wanted,how they lived in that age.We only know that their grandchildren have changed their grandparents' stories.

i think that is the beauty of the time we live in, because the stories which once would have been lost in time, are being recorded through social networking... and what you find is stories still change the way they used to when they were being told by two people face to face... but that change is now traceable... which is giving us a lot of insight into how information spreads in informal situations.

4chan and memes are a perfect example of this...

ps, i'm in no way suggesting written history is not important. it is by far the most important achievement of our species... but until recently, it was only ever half the picture of what society was like... we now have the ability to record the other - oral part of our history without trying to water it down for a published audience.. or remove it from it's context... and i think this is almost as important as the development of writing in the first place - we can now record culture and cultural change in real time within it's context.

[cenkiss]

Yes,information spreads faster through oral traditions but how much true?In one telling of a story a man has killed two lions with his bare hands but in another telling of the same story that man is a coward.Oral tradition is beatiful but not so much reliable as writing.

I don't say oral tradition is unimportant.For example our Turkish ancestors were nomadic,they had their own writing system but they have very few left to this age,because they needed to move around.And they had their tales mostly oral.The tale of ergenekon is an example.It can be very different by different people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orkhon_script

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergenekon

[antaeus]

Yes,information spreads faster through oral traditions but how much true?In one telling of a story a man has killed two lions with his bare hands but in another telling of the same story that man is a coward.Oral tradition is beatiful but not so much reliable as writing.

written history is only as reliable as the author... which means you're trusting in someone you dont know, who's motives are a mystery to you.. 2000 years after the fact, you have no way of knowing the context in which a story was written or even if it was a complete fabrication... the truth of a situation comes from multiple reports from independent authors. the same rule applies to oral traditions.

one of the hardest parts of being a historian is deciphering what is truth from fiction - roman histories are a perfect example of this. some are directly contradictory.

but as i was saying.. now we live in an age where we have both published stories, and unpublished narratives which have combined to create the best recorded picture of culture there has been. future generations will have both our informal conversations and our published works to look at when they investigate our society... written history will have a social context.

[cenkiss]

Well,that is also true.In written history we give writers lots of credit but we don't know if they are true.

[bushbush]

Well,that is also true.In written history we give writers lots of credit but we don't know if they are true.

indeed that's a limitation even for written history. If multiple versions survived on the same period, it might be easier to dig more facts out of prejudices; often though, we dont have such luxury.

But i feel the biggest advantage is the amount of information (aside from modern time of course, youtube is basically an unlimited database for modern oral "history") that written system can transmit. It's pretty much impossible to pass down more than a few books in precise manners by pure memorization over a long period of time.

[Ludicus]

It's pretty much impossible to pass down more than a few books in precise manners by pure memorization over a long period of time.

An interesting article:

When conquerors put vanquished peoples to the sword they destroy their books too. The Mongols under Hulagu sacked Baghdad in 1258 and devastated its centuries-old libraries; the Christian missionaries who accompanied the conquistadors made bonfires of the Aztec and Mayan codices. And as recently as August 1992, Ratko Mladic, the Serbian commander, ordered incendiary shells deployed for three days to destroy the National Library of Bosnia-Herzegovina in Sarajevo. In a perverse way, such murderous vandals paid tribute to the value of the book: They understood, however dimly, that conquest can't be complete until the entire written past of the conquered has been razed to the ground.

here... -

Oral tradition vs writings, which one is more crucial to cultural continuation?

Writings. An example, Charlemagne ordered the traditional verses of the Frankish people to be written down before they were forgotten (though they seem to have been lost)

[bushbush]

From your article:
"They understood, however dimly, that conquest can't be complete until the entire written past of the conquered has been razed to the ground."

Wow.....indeed, that's history's truth telling there.

Writings. An example, Charlemagne ordered the traditional verses of the Frankish people to be written down before they were forgotten (though they seem to have been lost)

I am kinda disappointed the person who said in another thread oral tradition > writings fails to show up and defend his or her view.

[conon394]

Oral tradition vs writings, which one is more crucial to cultural continuation?

Neither or Both.

The nice thing about oral tradition is is so flexible thus say in democratic Athens A mythical king Thesus, a moderate Aristocrat like Solon and a pair of friends involved in some form of relationship issue with tyrant that went sour and lead to an assasination - could all become essentially patron saints of the democracy... Or course the down side is the enemies of democracy could do the same. All in all you need both to preserve a culture it seems to me. Consider the Messenia helots - they obviously only had oral traditions available to them under the Spartan sandal - but did maintain a distinct cultural identity. Free from that bondage they were also quick to formalize that tradition in writing and such to establish it a fixed element of their 'history'.

[bushbush]

Consider the Messenia helots - they obviously only had oral traditions available to them under the Spartan sandal - but did maintain a distinct cultural identity. Free from that bondage they were also quick to formalize that tradition in writing and such to establish it a fixed element of their 'history'.

Indeed, that's where a culture moving towards the next stage and becomes more and more complex.

[Carpathian Wolf]

Neither or Both.

The nice thing about oral tradition is is so flexible thus say in democratic Athens A mythical king Thesus, a moderate Aristocrat like Solon and a pair of friends involved in some form of relationship issue with tyrant that went sour and lead to an assasination - could all become essentially patron saints of the democracy... Or course the down side is the enemies of democracy could do the same. All in all you need both to preserve a culture it seems to me. Consider the Messenia helots - they obviously only had oral traditions available to them under the Spartan sandal - but did maintain a distinct cultural identity. Free from that bondage they were also quick to formalize that tradition in writing and such to establish it a fixed element of their 'history'.

Pretty much, it's like asking what's more important your bones or your joints. Kind of pointless to ask.

[bushbush]

Consider the Messenia helots - they obviously only had oral traditions available to them under the Spartan sandal - but did maintain a distinct cultural identity. Free from that bondage they were also quick to formalize that tradition in writing and such to establish it a fixed element of their 'history'.

if they don't move towards such a step in adequate fashion, then their culture faces far greater danger of being lost am i right? I guess it's a stepping stone for greater cultural continuity, otherwise why people like these bothered to write them down (another case was how anxious romans later became to write history in latin when they were no longer satisfied reading only greek-written history).

I think this is what separates civilization and uncivilized to a large extent as well at least in classical definition.

Writings. An example, Charlemagne ordered the traditional verses of the Frankish people to be written down before they were forgotten (though they seem to have been lost)

"oh i suck, i forgot to write my history down".

[Ludicus]

Neither or Both.
they were also quick to formalize that tradition in writing and such to establish it a fixed element of their 'history'.

That´s it. Someone wrote - the written act is the main support that operates in the fixing of realizations judged fundamental.
Oral tradition is particularly important in Africa, because many African languages have been put to writing only very recently.

Just out of curiousity - here is how the Portuguese arrival was recounted by a oral historian (20th century) of the Pende people (SW Congo)

"Our fathers were living comfortably...They had cattle and crops; they had salt marshes and banana tress.
Suddenly they saw a big boat raising out of the great ocean. This boat had wings all of white, sparkling live knives.
White men came out of the water and spoke words which no one understood.
Our ancestors took fright; they said that these were vumbi, spirits returned from the dead.
They pushed them back into the ocean, with volleys of arrows,
but the vumbi spat fire with a noise of thunder. Many men were killed. Our ancestors fled.
The chiefs and wise men said that these vumbi were the former possessors of the land...
From that time to our days, whites have brought us nothing but wars and miseries"

it's like asking what's more important your bones or your joints

The bones. Joint replacements are available on the market.

[bushbush]

That´s it. Someone wrote - the written act is the main support that operates in the fixing of realizations judged fundamental.
Oral tradition is particularly important in Africa, because many African languages have been put to writing only very recently.

same for native americans. And what they could write down from their oral tales were limited to stories, myth, and songs passed down, not literature of millions of words, poetry, proses, philosophy, history, science, etc all which required writing to progress.