"Very few people are aware that nearly all myths have several - sometimes mutually contradictory - versions."
Yeah...it always kind of amuses me - in a cynical way - how modern retellings of Little Red Riding Hood are "twists" on the tale, the Grimm's is the only "real" version, and lots of people think I'm just making shit up when I talk about the versions before Grimm's.
In a slightly related tangent, my current reading for "Information and Society" is the chapter on the history of American libraries - which includes significant events in European library history from the time before the creation of the American colonies. Events such as the invention of the printing press. According to my textbook (which has been much better than the articles previously mentioned on my journal in terms of NOT using terms like "barbarians") one of the advantages of the creation of the printing press was the ability to have an "authoritative version."
I thought that was just such an odd way of putting it. Not a "common version" or a "shared version" but an "authoritative version." As if the main advantage to being able to make exact copies easily is that an authority can proclaim one version correct over another - thereby shutting down discussion, not that exact copies can facilitate clear communication and shared social experiences. And really, I think that kind of thinking is part of why modern authorities are having such a hard time dealing with issues like copyright and why so many people misunderstand things like fanfiction.
Which brings me right back to that same book's very confusing diagram of the relationship between libraries and artists and users in a digital age. My main problem with it being that there was no acknowledgement that modern technology blurs the line between artists and users. The printing press allowed a lot of people to become readers, but only a much smaller group of people could become writers. This was even more true of radio and television. Now lots more people can be writers/artists and that's confusing a lot of people, I think - despite it being a good thing in the end.
Speaking of copyright, I was very amused that when the book was talking about all the publishers in the colonies publishing lots of European author's works, there was never any mention of the American colonies being chock full of copyright theives for a good half century past the time when we were no longer officially colonies. :)
"Oh. I has opinions, don't I? That could be dangerous. :)"
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branchandroot
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Date: 2009-09-01 03:17 am (UTC)Yeah...it always kind of amuses me - in a cynical way - how modern retellings of Little Red Riding Hood are "twists" on the tale, the Grimm's is the only "real" version, and lots of people think I'm just making shit up when I talk about the versions before Grimm's.
In a slightly related tangent, my current reading for "Information and Society" is the chapter on the history of American libraries - which includes significant events in European library history from the time before the creation of the American colonies. Events such as the invention of the printing press. According to my textbook (which has been much better than the articles previously mentioned on my journal in terms of NOT using terms like "barbarians") one of the advantages of the creation of the printing press was the ability to have an "authoritative version."
I thought that was just such an odd way of putting it. Not a "common version" or a "shared version" but an "authoritative version." As if the main advantage to being able to make exact copies easily is that an authority can proclaim one version correct over another - thereby shutting down discussion, not that exact copies can facilitate clear communication and shared social experiences. And really, I think that kind of thinking is part of why modern authorities are having such a hard time dealing with issues like copyright and why so many people misunderstand things like fanfiction.
Which brings me right back to that same book's very confusing diagram of the relationship between libraries and artists and users in a digital age. My main problem with it being that there was no acknowledgement that modern technology blurs the line between artists and users. The printing press allowed a lot of people to become readers, but only a much smaller group of people could become writers. This was even more true of radio and television. Now lots more people can be writers/artists and that's confusing a lot of people, I think - despite it being a good thing in the end.
Speaking of copyright, I was very amused that when the book was talking about all the publishers in the colonies publishing lots of European author's works, there was never any mention of the American colonies being chock full of copyright theives for a good half century past the time when we were no longer officially colonies. :)
"Oh. I has opinions, don't I? That could be dangerous. :)"
Well, I'm right there with you, at least. :D