ABSTRACT
The perfection of the means of communication has given the average power-complex of the human being an enormous extension of expression. Perfection of the means of communication has meant instantaneity. Such an instantaneous network of communication is the body-mind unity of each of us. When a city or a society achieves a diversity and equilibrium of awareness analogous to the body-mind network, it has what people tend to regard as a high culture. But the instantaneity of communication makes free speech and thought difficult if not impossible and for many reasons. Robert Redfield in his recent book The Primitive World and Its Transformations points to the timeless character of preliterate societies where exclusively oral communication ensures intimacy, homogeneity and fixity of social experience. It is the advent of writing that sets in motion the urban revolution. Writing breaks up the fixity and homogeneity of preliterate societies.
