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Nadin, Mihai, 1938-

"The Civilization of Illiteracy"

It also entailed a language of its own, as does each
mediation. With the advent of means of exchange as universal as
language, the what and how of human activity grew even more
distant. Direct trade became indirect. People making up the
market no longer randomly matched needs and availability. Their
market praxis resulted in an organizing device, and used
language to further diversify the resources people needed for
their lives. This language was still rudimentary, direct, oral,
captive to immediacy, and often consumed together with the
resource or choice exhausted (when no alternative was
generated). This happens even in our day.
In its later constitution in practical activity, language was
used for records and transactions, for plans and new
experiences. The logic of this language was an extension and
instantiation of the logic of human activity. It complemented the
heuristic, innate propensity for seeking new choices. Influenced
by human interaction in the market, and subjected to the
expectation of progressively higher efficiency, human activity
became increasingly mediated. A proliferation of tools allowed
for increased productivity in those remote times of the
inception of language. Eventually tools, and other artifacts,
became themselves an object of the market, in addition to
supporting self-constitutive practical experiences of the humans
interacting with them. As a mediating element between the
processor and what is processed, the tool was a means of work
and a goal: better tools require instructed users.


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