For millions of citizens from countries south of Russia,
who once gave up their roots to show allegiance to the Soviet
Empire, to return to Arabic writing after being forced to adopt
the Cyrillic means rediscovering and reconnecting to their
eternity. That some of them, caught in the geo- political
confrontation of their neighbors, adopt the Roman alphabet of
their Turkish Moslem brothers, does not change the expectation.
Religion and efficiency
In the literate forms of language experiences, not only religion,
but also science and the humanities, literature, and politics
are established and subjected to the practical test of
efficiency. Each projects a notion of permanency and
universality, which is influenced by the practical experience of
religion, sometimes in contradiction to the archetypal
experience resulting in the notion (or notions) of God (or gods).
Now that the pragmatic framework of the very ample scale of
human practice makes permanency and universality untenable, the
tendency to escape from the confines of religion becomes
evident. There is a strong sense of relativism in science, an
appropriate self- doubt in humanistic discourse, and an
appropriate understanding of the multiplicity and open-endedness
in almost every aspect of our social and political life.
This was not achieved through and in literacy, but in disregard
of it, through the many partial literacies reflecting our
practical self-constitution.
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