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| In the relay of knowledge, the baton is never dropped. However, pieces of it are lost forever. |
Hello Carpe
Diem!!! Hope finals are going well! Congrats to all on making it this far! I
decided to put this up a little early since I have a test in the morning. So,
after a few very interesting discussions this morning on all kinds of
knowledge, I came up with my idea for my blog post!
Knowledge
has grown and changed much throughout the centuries. As knowledge institutions
and mediums have progressed over the years from folk knowledge to the new
frontier of digital knowledge today, there has been an ever increasing shift in
its complexity as people strive to preserve the knowledge they already have
while adding new knowledge onto it. Although many have attempted to preserve the
various precursors to each new form of knowledge, each additional type of
knowledge has accommodated less and less collaboration among the peoples of the
world.
The most collaborative form of
knowledge is folk knowledge. In ancient times in which members of a community
only had folk knowledge or a combination of folk and oral knowledge, they were
more willing to help each other because they were struggling for survival. At
the same time, as folk knowledge is shared, both the teacher and the learner
come closer because the teacher is giving a part of themselves-their
knowledge-to the learner. Marc's post gives a good example of this, as he was able to get to know his room mate better by teaching him how to make paper airplanes. As Andrew Powley brought up in our first salon
discussion, even a bad type of folk knowledge such as secret combinations in
Book of Mormon times or witchcraft can bring the community of participating members
closer together.
Oral knowledge was combined with folk
knowledge in many cases. The two mediums together could be used to explain the
important questions in the world: where we came from, what we need to do, and
what happens after death. On the basic level where oral knowledge was used
solely for communication, there was not much collaboration that was lost in the
shift towards oral knowledge. However, it began to cause a slight distance
between people when rulers were able to make long speeches to the masses without
knowing them personally.
The
most collaborative form of knowledge is folk knowledge. In ancient times in
which members of a community only had folk knowledge or a combination of folk
and oral knowledge, they were more willing to help each other because they were
struggling for survival. At the same time, as folk knowledge is shared, both
the teacher and the learner come closer because the teacher is giving a part of
themselves-their knowledge-to the learner. Marc's post gives a good example of this, as he
was able to get to know his roommate better by teaching him how to make paper
airplanes. As Andrew Powley brought up in our first salon discussion, even a
bad type of folk knowledge such as secret combinations in Book of Mormon times
or witchcraft can bring the community of participating members closer
together.
Oral knowledge was combined with folk
knowledge in many cases. The two mediums together could be used to explain the
important questions in the world: where we came from, what we need to do, and
what happens after death. On the basic level where oral knowledge was used
solely for communication, there was not much collaboration that was lost in the
shift towards oral knowledge. However, it began to cause a slight distance
between people when rulers were able to make long speeches to the masses
without knowing them personally.
The
transition to written knowledge, on the other hand, changed the way that people
communicated immensely. Even famous thinkers such as Plato were very worried
about the shift from oral to written knowledge. When writing became
commonplace, it caused an even larger loss of connection between the teacher
and the audience. In addition, with the insertion of written books and
libraries into the world’s culture, there were increasingly more people who
were able to spend hours learning in a library from a book. This shift on
learning from inanimate objects instead of a person caused a decrease in the
interaction within the community for knowledge. No longer were people going to
their town’s wise elders to learn about the world. They could now receive that
knowledge on their own.
With the
advent of the printing press, this decreased interaction between learners and
their teachers increased even more. Now books were more accessible to the
common man and a wider variety of books was available. Again, this detracted
from the interaction between the author and audience even more. Today, print
knowledge is shifting into the digital age which is perhaps taking away the most
from the collaboration in a community. Although it allows people to quickly
communicate with others on the side of the world instantaneously, they do not
directly interact with each other. Members of society today can easily cut
themselves off from the rest of the world with the realms of knowledge that can
be found at their fingertips via the world-wide web. 
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