Theatre as Information-Processing in Western Cultures

Theatre as Information-Processing in Western Cultures DERRICK DE KERCKHOVE The purpose of the following investigation is to lind the place of theatre in the development of some psychological features of Western cultures. The bypothesis examined here is that Greek theatre was one of the direct consequences of the invention and use of the phonetic alphabet. and that its specific function was to provide a model of information-processing to harmonize the psychological effects of the metamorphosis introduced by the alphabet in pre-literate culture. The whole matter rests upon the way the human psyche processes information. How do we organize for ourselves, "in our own minds," the features and the evidence ofour ordinary daily experience? What enables us to select. to classify. and to judge the aspects and stimulation provided by our environments. and to maintain consistent relationships with them? We are provided with a constant and abundant flow ofstimuli and information afforded by our senses, but we edit most of it out, according to unconscious criteria. From the environment and from our human relationships. we select and co-ordinate only those features and processes which can be assimilated or integrated within a constantly reconfigured synthesis. The role of linguistic structures in this patterning of experience bas been suggested by several linguists and anthropologists. among whom the better known are B. Whorf. E. Sapir. and D. Lee. However. language probably does not account for all of our responses. and it may itself be partly dependent for its development and its lexical choices on the biases of our sensory responses. Our perceptions combine admirably in a perpetual adaptation to an organic synthesis which modifies and refocuses itself with as much diligence and smoothness as the human eyes refocus to integrate changing relationships in the visual field. Naturally. we tend to take this synthesis for granted. just as we ordinarily take for granted the untiring activity ofsynthesis which is carried on ceaselessly by our bodies. I suspect. however. that there is a determining relationship in 144 DERRICK DE KERCKHOVE Western cultures between the model provided by the theatrical setting and the perceptual synthesis which governs the selection and the patterning ofWestern sensory information and stimulation. THEATRE AND THE PHONETIC ALPHABET Theatre is an outgrowth of the alphabet. It not only stems from it and decorates the alphabetic culture, but also provides its spectators with models of integration for those aspects of perception and experience which have been determined by the alphabetic technologies in the total culture. Theatre and the alphabet both affect patterns of memory and techniques of classification. In his Preface to Plato, inspired by the pioneering work ofMilman Parry and Alfred Lord, Eric A. Havelock explains that the techniques ofrecall in the oral tradition involved the participation of the whole body; composition and delivery depended on rhythm, prosody, sound patterns, singing, gesturing, and dancing. The introduction of phonetic writing soon rendered obsolete most of these strenuous strategies ofrecall to replace them with the single line of visual signs supporting the practice of vocalization. Besides being a significant labour-saving device, the alphabet introduced a critical distance between the knower and the object of knowledge.' Plato, who was already a thoroughly alphabetized man, seems to take this epistemological cleavage for granted as be recounts the famous Egyptian legend about the invention of letters. In it, the king-god Thamous reprimands Thoth, the inventor of the art of writing, for having failed to foresee the undesirable consequences of his invention: this discovery OfyOUIS will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves.1 Plato, whose own style of writing exemplifies a transitional stage from the oral to the written forms of information-processing, assumes that knowledge is only a "content," something which is quite independent of the techniques used for processing and storing information. He also assumes that human beings have an "inside," and that information can be in or out depending on how they deal with it. We are so well accustomed to making these same assumptions, that we fail to question the validity of Plato's intuition. Aeschylus was significantly more...