ABSTRACT
In his lifelong study of Egyptian cultural memory, Jan Assmann found that the aim of Ancient Egyptian education was “homo auditor”, the man who knows how to listen in contrast to “homo-dialogicus”, a term coined by Richard Niebuhr (1999) which refers to human beings as dialogical creatures. Assmann found that Ancient Egyptian Maatian ethical principles call for “communicative solidarity”, a listening-centered communication ethic premised on three principles: (1) Active solidarity (reciprocity); (2) communicative solidarity (shared moral language); and (3) intentional solidarity (prescriptive altruism). When compared to other classical approaches to ethics, Maat was more than a moral ideal in Kemet; it was a philosophical, spiritual, and aesthetic ideal. Today, it would be difficult to envision a set of principles that can be so widespread and so entrenched in a culture that could provide the axioms to what is good and what is beautiful simultaneously. Yet, such is the case with Maat. In this chapter, Maat is presented as a universal, all-encompassing moral ideal that transcended the realm of morality to a broader cultural paradigm. In doing so, parallels are drawn to Kant’s deontological approach to ethics in an effort to continue to make Maat conversant with other major approaches to ethics and communication ethics. Ultimately, Maat stands on its own as a complete universal approach to ethics that must be studied and in its own terms, and can be summed up as “communicating to posterity”.
