"The list is the origin of culture. It's part of the history of art and literature. What does culture want? To make infinity comprehensible. It also wants to create order -- not always, but often. And how, as a human being, does one face infinity? How does one attempt to grasp the incomprehensible? Through lists, through catalogs, through collections in museums and through encyclopedias and dictionaries.
"The list doesn't destroy culture; it creates it."
HOW I FEEL WHEN I’M TWO WEEKS OUT FROM QUALS
9 years ago
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I am a big fan of a more nodal idea of knowledge, and I think that is very similar--if not the same--as what Eco is getting at. But, having read the article, he kinda seems to be all over the place.
I am caught on the line "The list is origin of culture." I am not sure how on-board I am with the rest of the quote (except for the last line, which seems to link up with the first). But, for my response, I will be considering the List as the origin or source of culture and as a more (most?) pure/exhaustive connection with the objective world.
Culture extracts or is birthed from the list. Where culture goes from there will probably involve the defining or the sequence or the dimensions in which listed items presented.
Lists--as opposed to categorical definitions--are not compact enough for practical life and everyday communication. In other words, lists are not suitable for the typical channels of culture. They must be captured/defined into mobile, manageable bits.
For example, a part of history presented as narrative is much more mobile, communicable, and memorable than the same part of history presented as a list of entities, events, or source articles. Although, the latter gives birth to the former, and the latter is more exact than the former.
Sidenote: Focault asserts the fact that the latter establishes a power structure in that it asserts a singular vision and puts another layer between us and the original list. (side-sidenote: i believe Focault is correct, which involved buying into his singular vision of knowledge and information.)
Anyhow... It is interesting how the interviewer challenges Eco when discussing lists as a literary tool. It gets at this conflict of list versus essence. I think we generally expect good writers (harbingers of culture, mind you) to succinctly capture the essence of objects or characters. Rambling off a list would seem to reflect a lack of craftsmanship.
Of course, displaying a lack of craftsmanship certainly can be a tool in the hands of an author. However, I am not sure I would push the list as a default tool. (Although, I must confess I like the idea of the list as a tool in educational or historical texts.)
Similarly (and to conclude), I am not sure the list could be pushed as culture. I think they are somewhat mutually exclusive. Culture occurs when it slices the list and regurgitates it.
Ah, I think you are ignoring oral cultures, my friend. (Of course, just like the fellow in that one book I stole from fair and brown Ms. Caroline remarked, I suppose that constitutes a sort of normalising, in contradistinction to all those illiterate savages, right?)
Look at Homer - the man was never happier than when rattling off the names of eighty ships' captains in row, or describing just exactly whom it was and in what order that many-turned Odysseus eviscerated in his banquet hall. Catalog is the stuff of epic; and if we do not care for catalogs, it is because our verse no longer breaks the sky. Fie upon your poetry of lacerated telegrams
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