I don’t know what you are saying, IVC had some system of graphic representation by 2200 BCE, which resembles that used in the Persian gulf. Avestan is mostly derived from vedic sanskrit and was used to decipher it. Ancient Greece was a new culture, whichever of the two main periods you take. Hesiod either predates or was roughly contemporary to Homer, more than likely from “the Orient,” and as far as I know wrote his works.
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Yeah, it’s certainly probable that they had some form of writing and even possible that it was widely used.
I’m saying that a literate culture doesn’t necessarily rely on writing (hard as it is for us to imagine such a thing these days!) But in either case, the main critique of a reliance on tradition (whether that tradition is written or oral!) is when it justifies a priestly caste and comes to substitute for the personal realization of wisdom. I don’t see it as a critique of having a tradition in toto.
We agree on this. Even today the highly literate still rely upon oral transmission, because they can efficiently heft years of working with such production in an hour or two by talking about it, when they are expert and have the requisite level of understanding to make them reliable interlocutors.
I was in school back in the day when students developed skills in synchronous listening and organization of information in the form of taking their own notes, by attending lectures from profs who were at best assisted to visually present their content by overhead projectors. We have many lost arts, even within the span of a few decades.
Basically, I think we are both saying, why not both? Why not many?
This is old opinion now but still an interesting one …
Have to stop now. Thx. Enjoy the read.
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I think the development of EBTs was not entirely based on oral transmission and composition, but also artificial creation.