1.10 Jack Goody Part 3: The Vai, Scribner and Cole, The Mau Mau Uprising, and a Story

"The global village was modeled on colonial strategies intended to transform the semiotic, economic, and spatial fabric of the decolonizing world in such a way as to safeguard British economic and political interests in the aftermath of independence. Following the example of British strategy in Kenya, the global village can be understood as a mechanism for pacifying postcolonial agrarian society by absorbing people made landless by the relentless expansion of agrarian capital. The global village—like villagization—was intended to enfold dispossessed denizens into the incipient nation-form and into the global market, while simultaneously withholding the modes of semiotic power required to participate effectively in a public sphere.”

-Ginger Nolan

"The Europeans often believe paper over people..."

-Ted Chiang

"The white people never stop setting their eyes on the drawings of their speech, which they circulate among themselves pasted on paper skins. This way they just stare at their own thought and only end up knowing what is already inside their minds." 

-Davi Kopenawa

Sources and discussion:

https://old.reddit.com/r/DilettanteryPodcast/comments/lg2n5x/110_jack_goody_part_3_the_vai_scribner_and_cole/?