Abstract:
Sometimes what is not in a text is more significant than what is. This paper
examines a variety of texts to establish what is and is not present. The
argument presented in this paper demonstrates that skewed perspectives,
closed lenses, and distorted worldviews are powerful teachers. Appropriate
perspectives and lenses can provide a worldview of complex and
sophisticated thought, traditioned through memory, simultaneously stretching
back into the past and drawing the past into the present…and pointing a way
into the future.
The paper examines a well-respected account of the 'Western Mind' and then
demonstrates what is not in the text which could contribute to a fuller
understanding of human civilization such as is present in the texts of peoples
whose knowledge predates and/or precludes scribal alphabetic writing. The
paper provides examples of such knowledges from societies which
demonstrate sophisticated and complex thinking, both prior to 3000 BCE in
theWest and in ancient and present day Africa. The paper demonstrates that
the exclusion of evidence of complex and sophisticated thinking which
predates or precludes scribal alphabetic writing presents a skewed
understanding of the knowledge in such societies, and that Africa can learn
from such exclusions to its benefit.
