Comments on: OMG. I disagree with Umberto Eco!

By: Tom Vest

Tom Vest — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 04:16:19 +0000

Re: …stories that some monetary theorists and economic historians tell about the emergence of “liquidity mechanisms” like money and credit as the impetus for the development of writing itself…

One good, recent exemplar of the above is:

Basu, Kirk, & Waymire, “Memory, Transaction Records, and The Wealth of Nations,” in
Accounting, Organizations and Society
Volume 34, Issue 8, November 2009, Pages 895-917

http://preview.tinyurl.com/Memory-TransactionRecords

By: Tom Vest

Tom Vest — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 04:09:53 +0000

I think Eco’s being ironic here, if that’s not a redundant statement. Lists don’t destroy culture, they create culture — albeit by imposing a veneer of separability and commensurability on the raw stuff of experience; they make infinity comprehensible, and/or finitude less terrifying, but only by interposing a reassuring but false unidimensionality.

Or perhaps that’s entirely off base, and here Eco is using culture in the sense of “material culture,” which would make sense given his innumerable extended literary explorations of the uniqueness-locality-periodicity of various things, many of which seem to play no particular role in his narratives other than to serve as hermeneutical object-lessons. In this sense his claim about lists being at the foundation of culture would be consistent with the stories that some monetary theorists and economic historians tell about the emergence of “liquidity mechanisms” like money and credit as the impetus for the development of writing itself.

By: David K.

David K. — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 20:21:35 +0000

Perhaps “The list is the origin of culture,” in Eco’s idea because many of the first examples of writing (stone, clay, papyrus) we were able to decipher were lists from traders noting their wares or their purchases or their transactions. Consequently, if traders’ lists were the beginning of written language, and written language is the origin of culture, then “the list” would be “the origin of culture,” no?

By: felicity dodge

felicity dodge — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 12:42:41 +0000

It seems to me that Eco is not only challenging the way we define our self, but our surroundings and the way we interact with beings and the objects around us.

When discussing water, he states that “The essential definition [H2O] is primitive compared with the list”. The explanation H20, isn’t enough! But as the list of ways to describe or explain water grows … it seems it still isn’t enough.

Eco is a professor. I imagine he’d welcome you questioning his reasoning. But I find an elusive poetry to Eco’s reasoning that lures me in. Even in the literature and art, graphic lists are used to express something, without ever being complete or fully explanatory. We’re being drawn to the infinite.

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 04:09:33 +0000

Umberto uses the word list in several different ways. To list a number? 15. Mr. Eco uses the word both as a noun and a verb.

He is speaking nonsense, and hoping that we all think he is just so brilliant that we can’t follow him. Then he allows US to provide the meaning to his (sometimes) gibberish.

Congratulations for having the courage to say out loud that you disagree with this famous person! Shall I list the ways that you are on your way to finding the Truth?

By: Umberto

Umberto — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:21:17 +0000

You, sir, are clearly an animal.

By: Claus

Claus — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 07:12:42 +0000

Well, cave paintings obviously are not sequential, but of course spoken word is and probably predates cave paintings. In that sense sequential lists are certainly right there at the origin. Stories are lists.
– but as you say, one probably shouldn’t make to much of the statement in the first place.