"Writing appears to be necessary for the centralized, stratified state to reproduce itself. Writing is a strange thing. The one phenomenon which has invariably accompanied it is the formation of cities and empires: the integration into a political system of a considerable number of individuals into a hierarchy of castes and slaves. It seems rather to favor the exploitation than the enlightenment of mankind."-Claude Levi-Strauss, "Tristes Tropiques" (1968).
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