According to Socrates (via The Phaedrus) , the god Theuth in ancient Egypt (is there any other kind of Egypt in most peoples minds?) invented a great many things in the realms of ideas and notions, from numbers to geometry and gambling... and writing.
He presented these as gifts to the God-King Thamus, and wanted to know which one should be presented to the Egyptian people.
Thamus decrees that writing was a pharmakon. Like the word 'drug' it could be good or bad. Used to cure, or used to harm.
According to Thamus, writing would allow people to extend their memories and share information. But, it would cause people to rely on it and other external means of recording and documentation too much. Our own memories would wither and fail. These notes and recors would replace our minds.
Worse than this, written information cannot teach, according to Thamus. You can't question it, and it can't defend itself when people misunderstand or misrepresent it. Written communication would give people the 'false conceit of knowledge,' a fake certainty that they understand something.
For some reason, when I thought of this, I thought of modern religions. I thought of the bible thumpers who use Leviticus as iron-clad reasoning to deny people equality. I thought of FOX News (with video recording being a sort of descendant of writing) and Bill O'Reilly's irrefutably logical debating point- yelling 'Shut up' and then having the persons mic cut off. I thought a little on the nature of knowldege. I thought of the internet (and things like the silliness board) and for some reason drew a comparison to someone who has access to a library with every work ever written, and of people ignoring it in lieu of People or Us or whatever other vapid celebrity fellating magazine it is that people read.
Can I copy that and send it to some of my DC friends?
and celebrating a B-day NY style is really just barhopping, getting as many people to buy you a drink as possible, pretending to be cool while trying not to be considered a hipster...
--l*P