Articles Related to Archaeology

Overstimulation

Synopsis:  I discuss a parent's dilemma between leading an adult life and providing adequate guidance and care for one's child.  How much of what we do is misguided, and how can we know?  A history of hysteria meets the age-old questions of "how much TV?" and "what qualifies as overstimulation?"

Excerpt:  Would you believe that when writing became increasingly available to the masses in early Western history, prominent thinkers railed against it as unhealthy? Socrates railed against the spread of literacy, as he believed it would dwarf the memories of men (the Greek word for read is "anaginosko," literally "to know again," as paper and ink spare the scholar the task of remembering). Indeed, from the dawn of human civilization, bards relayed epic tales, such as Homer's Ilyad, purely from memory.

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