5 - Ruptures and continuities

Summary

It is dangerous but necessary to return to the aims one set oneself at the beginning of an essay. These were, first, to outline the effects of early literacy on the organization of human societies – early because to consider the effects of a long written tradition would be to take on an even more difficult task. And secondly I sought to indicate how such considerations should not only qualify simplistic Eurocentric notions of the nature of modern and traditional societies but should modify analyses of the classification and development of human communities, by placing more emphasis than is often done on the means and mode, that is, the relations of communication. In this concluding chapter I want to summarize the first, exemplify the second and add some further comments about analytic procedures.

In outlining some of the major differences that writing can make to the organization of social action, I took as a framework the broad level of the institutional categories of religion, economy, polity and law. Even when they take the form of separate organizations, none of these institutions is completely distinct, so that the topics of the chapters inevitably overlap. And when it comes to the simpler societies there is so much overlap that one can treat these categories only in functional terms.

For social organization, the long learning process which early forms of writing involve leads to the emergence of literate specialists who do not participate in the primary productive processes and have therefore to be supported by those who do, by some form of redistribution or endowment.