(C)Omissions of perspective, lens and worldview : what Africa can learn from the 'Western Mind' about the oral tradition of (indigenous) knowledge

Abstract

Sometimes what is not in a text is more significant than what is. This paper examines a variety of texts to establish what is and is not present. The argument presented in this paper demonstrates that skewed perspectives, closed lenses, and distorted worldviews are powerful teachers. Appropriate perspectives and lenses can provide a worldview of complex and sophisticated thought, traditioned through memory, simultaneously stretching back into the past and drawing the past into the present…and pointing a way into the future. The paper examines a well-respected account of the 'Western Mind' and then demonstrates what is not in the text which could contribute to a fuller understanding of human civilization such as is present in the texts of peoples whose knowledge predates and/or precludes scribal alphabetic writing. The paper provides examples of such knowledges from societies which demonstrate sophisticated and complex thinking, both prior to 3000 BCE in theWest and in ancient and present day Africa. The paper demonstrates that the exclusion of evidence of complex and sophisticated thinking which predates or precludes scribal alphabetic writing presents a skewed understanding of the knowledge in such societies, and that Africa can learn from such exclusions to its benefit.