The Parallel Campaign II

open-reading-group at o-r-g.com open-reading-group at o-r-g.com
Wed Mar 12 19:15:30 EDT 2008


ON A CERTAIN PASSAGE OF PLATO'S PHAEDRUS

While Socrates's discussion of language privileges speech over writing
because writing makes people forgetful of what they know, his dialogue
with Phaedrus has been discussed, debated, refuted, and republished for
nearly two dozen centuries. Through writing, that speech has endured and
enriched us, and it is here that Socrates got it very wrong: "Thanks to
books, we know Socrates distrusted books," writes poet and cultural critic
Gabriel Zaid. "Culture is conversation," he continues, "Writing, reading,
editing, printing, distributing, cataloging, reviewing, can be fuel for
that conversation, ways of keeping it lively. It could even be said that
to publish a book is to insert it into the middle of that conversation,
that to establish a publishing house, bookstore, or library is to start a
conversation -- a conversation that springs, as it should, from local
debate, but that opens up, as it should, to all places and times."

--

DEXTER SINISTER WILL OCCUPY THE COMMANDER'S ROOM AT THE 7TH REGIMENT
ARMORY EVERY DAY FROM 4 MARCH TO 23 MARCH 2008 RELEASING A SERIES OF
PARALLEL TEXTS THROUGH MULTIPLE CHANNELS OF DISTRIBUTION WHICH REFLECT ON
THE 2008 WHITNEY BIENNIAL.

MORE INFORMATION IS AVAILABLE ON THE TRUE MIRROR WEBSITE:
http://www.sinisterdexter.org/


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