Episode 4: Writing and Stargate Transcript

Episode 4:

Hello and welcome to episode 4 of the Plutarch Project. I’m your host Josh Nieubuurt and today we will be reflecting on last episode and some kind of contemporary media. If you didn’t listen to the last episode I’d recommend checking it out. Well alrighty then let’s get started!

If language is the story of society then writing is is societies’ memoir. It’s humankind’s ability to manufacture and utilize complex forms of language that have allowed our species to rise above the cognitive status of our ancient ancestors in pre-history. World renowned social anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss, not the jeans guy, recognized the power held by writing his work Tristes Tropiques (Sad Tropics). In the work he states,

There are people with, or without, writing; the former are able to store up their past achievements and to move with ever-increasing rapidity towards the goal they have set themselves, whereas the latter, being incapable of remembering the past beyond the narrow margin of the individual memory, seem bound to remain imprisoned in a fluctuating history which will always lack both a beginning and any lasting awareness of an aim. (Levi-Strauss 1281)

Societies which do not have a written form of their language also lack a comprehensive recorded history. This is a big deal. Think about how many societies have indubitably vanished from the face of the earth with only faint archeological shadows remaining behind to prove their existence.

Levi-Strauss built off of Saussure’s linguistic methods and applied them to anthropology. This opened doors to new ways to study indigenous peoples including how o compare societies with and without writing.

One such method is through the medium of media and the imaginative powers. Looking at the 1994 Science Fiction film Stargate we can get an imaginative glimpse of how much writing has changed the face of humankind. Also, as a fringe benefit, we may also gain some understanding into the immense power that writing wields for both good and for evil.

In the film Stargate archeologists discover an unknown object in the Egyptian desert in the 1920’s. The object is made from an substance not found on earth. In addition this object has characters from the ancient Egyptian writing systems and other undistinguishable characters chiseled into its facade. What a set up! Am I right? Who doesn’t love ancient Egypt stuff?

Decades later the United States Air Force employs the help of a particularly gifted, yet socially awkward, archeologist by the name of Dr. Daniel Jackson (played by the actor James Spader). Dr. Jackson discovers the meaning behind the ancient unknown symbols. Boom science! hey end up being constellations of stars which-much like language-when aligned correctly help to open up a wormhole to another world. Exactly how novels, philosophical treatises, and those celebrity tabloids next to the cash register open up whole new worlds for their readers and bored line dwellers.

In this other world Dr. Jackson and an elite squad of military personnel find themselves in a new world resembling the desert terrain of ancient Egypt. They happen upon a society, which for roughly ten thousand years, has remained the same due to their laws restricting the practice of writing. It is through Dr. Jackson’s understanding of linguistics and anthropology that he is capable of making astute observations on the situation he finds himself in. Furthermore, he comes to understand the power which writing has had in hindering this societies development.

The people of this alien-society have remained subservient to their ruler for thousands of years due to their inability to read and write. They know nothing more than their verbal traditions and the few generations of collective memory that exist without writing. They live in constant fear of their god-like ruler and his immense knowledge and power. Without a greater breadth of collective knowledge their ability to evolve as a society has become an impossibility.

As Levi-Strauss states, “the possession of writing vastly increases man’s ability to preserve knowledge. It can be thought of as an artificial memory, the development of which ought to lead to a clearer awareness of the past, and hence to a greater ability to organize both the present and the future” (Levi-Strauss 1281). Without the ability to build upon past generation’s knowledge and experiences a society will remain stunted and subservient to the powers that be.

After meeting the inhabitants of this planet Dr. Jackson soon comes to find out that these people’s ancestors originally hailed from planet earth and were brought here thousands of years ago as a slave race.

He becomes aware of this knowledge due to finding hidden cave hieroglyphs which are identical to the ancient Egyptian language of earth. Do you remember Ferdinand De Saussure from last episode? If not this is where his work comes into the picture,, “language is a well-defined object in the heterogeneous mass of speech… it exists only by virtue of a sort of contract signed by the members of a community” (Saussure 850). Both the ancient Egyptian community and the community on the alien planet have this contract with their respective language. Dr. Jackson, being an expert linguist, is able to grasp this common association and use it for the mutual benefit of the communities in which he is involved with.

Dr. Jackson, with his knowledge of the ancient Egyptian language-and a bit of phonetic tinkering and Hollywood movie magic-is able to communicate with these people after he recognizes the linguistic trunk of their language. This position immediately makes him the scribe of the community for his English speaking earth humans as well as the alien world humans.

The importance of a scribe definitely needs to be recognized. Levi-Strauss mentions the importance of a community scribe stating, “His knowledge is accompanied by power” (Levi-Strauss 1281). The power of Dr. Jackson is noticed by his comrades, the film’s antagonist (antagonist basically being the “bad guy”), and by the entire population of humans on this alien planet.

It is only with the help of Dr. Jackson, who functions as the scribe, that the enslaved people of the planet become fully aware of their history and their capacity to overthrow their evil overlord. Dr. Jackson, acting as the scribe, reads the hieroglyphs which state,

[The antagonist] inhabiting this human form, he appointed himself ruler. He used the Stargate to bring thousands of people here to this planet as workers… for the mines. […] Now, something happened back on Earth. A rebellion or uprising and the Stargate was buried there. Fearful of a rebellion here, Ra outlawed reading and writing. He didn’t want the people to remember the truth. (Stargate)

This message is then passed on to the community and an uprising begins that topples the oppressive alien being who had held power for thousands of years. Through the power of writing (and the lack of it) the inhabitants of this planet were made into slaves. They had no sense of time and only a veiled understanding of the past until a scribe came to their world and opened their eyes to the power of writing.

Levi-Strauss believed writing to be a primary factor in creating and domineering over the practice of slavery. He states on the role of writing after its invention, “seems to have favored the exploitation of human beings rather than their enlightenment” (Levi-Strauss 1282).

In the film as well the overlord and the earth humans were capable of reading and utilizing the stellar tool of writing. Through the fictional work of the film we are able to gain an insight into how writing has been used and exploited throughout history. In contemporary society it is no longer a matter of being able to read and write; but rather being able to distinguish between forms of enlightenment and dominance in visual-media and writing.

This struggle after the antagonists downfall is not played out within the world of the film. Though if Levi-Strauss is correct it will inevitably become a reality of the fictional society. Perhaps people in this alien world will then reflect people in contemporary society. Perhaps they too will live in an age in which people are bombarded with language trying to sell them something, convince them of some idea, to sway their opinions, to manipulate their beliefs, or simply as a form of recreation. Regardless of how writing and language are used, both in fiction and in reality, their power is undeniable.

So how is writing influencing your life? Is it a force for enlightenment or is it a scourge upon your intelligence? If you write well are you better able to express your experience as a human being in the 21st century? Does it have pragmatic application like the grammerly commercial states? Let us know what you think, we love hearing from you!

Before we finish this episode a big shout out to redditors at the subreddit askliteratarystudies and especially to reddit users: chaos of starless sleep and tangent love for their feedback. You’re all saints in my book. To everyone else thanks for checking us out! Onward!   

Thanks for reading!

Works Cited

De Saussure, Ferdinand. Course in General Linguistics. The Norton Anthology of Theory &

    Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch et al. 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2010.

    850-866. Print.

Lévi-Strauss, Claude. Tristes Tropiques: The Norton Anthology of

    Theory & Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch et al. 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.,

2010. 1277-1286. Print.

Emmerich, Roland, et al. Stargate. [Videorecording]. n.p.: Santa Monica, Calif. : Artisan Home Entertainment, [2003], 2003. OhioLINK Library Catalog. Web. 26 Feb. 2016