Music, Written Text and the Literate Mind

The literate mind is, I think, more charitable to (the frailties of) the spoken word, than to the written. This is perhaps because, in a great ironic twist, the spoken word has deep roots in the preliterate mind, which we have not quite lost.

The preliterate mind is by definition more aural than textual.

It is far easier to produce great music, than to write great text. And far easier to come upon fine music, than upon fine 'text' -- if you come to think about it.

Music so very often and so easily makes even banal words/lyrics soar into the poetic heavens.

Great literary or scientific text is incapable of dominating the airwaves, as music does. Such a text is not, alas, sexy enough for a 4:12-minute ecosystem.

And yet, for the literate (as for the closed) mind, great music -- in particular, of the popular variety -- when weighed against great scientific or creative literature (or the written word in general), simultaneously appears:

1. Less mainstream as a continual point of reference; and,
2. Even less consequential for important matters of day-to-day life -- a luxury lay society and culture can ill-afford.

But how ill-conceived is all that! How many insights have thus passed us by, and how many opportunities lost?