Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/05/23/the-rammellzee-universe.html
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“The letter is armed to stop all the phony formations, lies, and tricknowlegies placed upon its structure,” he wrote. “You think war is always shooting and beating everybody, but no, we had the letters fight for us.”
I am reminded of this passage from Marshall McLuhan’s The Gutenberg Galaxy:
“Harold Innis, in Empire and Communications, was the first to … explain in detail the simple truth of the Cadmus myth. The Greek King Cadmus, who introduced the phonetic alphabet to Greece, was said to have sown the dragon’s teeth and that they sprang up armed men. (The dragon’s teeth may allude to the old hieroglyphic forms.)”
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In other words: an alphabet, as a technology, allows for the assembly and use of armies.
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