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| priests_and_programmers [2011-03-07 04:04] – created 203.117.66.237 | priests_and_programmers [2014-05-23 16:37] (current) – nik |
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| Om sarwa prani hitangkaram (May all that breathes be well, Balinese farmer's prayer) | Om sarwa prani hitangkaram |
| | * May all that breathes be well, Balinese farmers' prayer |
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| pp 6: | pp 6: |
| The word "technology" derives from techie, a Greek word that originally referred to the labors of the smith and other craftsmen. The analogous Greek word for the labors of the farmer is erga or "work". as in Hesiod's Works and Days. Erga could also mean farm lands: tilled fields or lands that had been worked, but not virgin fields or forests. This fishing is the erga of the sea, while in another sense, honey is the erga of bees. This distinction between techie and erga is relevant to a theory of the special characteristics of agricultural rites. | The word "technology" derives from techne (τέχνη), a Greek word that originally referred to the labors of the smith and other craftsmen. The analogous Greek word for the labors of the farmer is erga or "work". as in Hesiod's Works and Days. Erga could also mean farm lands: tilled fields or lands that had been worked, but not virgin fields or forests. This fishing is the erga of the sea, while in another sense, honey is the erga of bees. This distinction between techie and erga is relevant to a theory of the special characteristics of agricultural rites. |
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| For the Greeks, the smith was a solitary figure, whose techie was a jealously guarded secret connecting him to the powers of the underworld through the god Hephaestus. In contrast, the erga, or work, of the farmer was public, involving the wohole society and most of the gods. Both activities (smithing and farming) involved ritual, but in the case of techie the rituals were secret and individuals, whereas erga are public and collective. Indeed the calendar of agricultural rites is the master social calendar for annual and agricultural cycles are one and the same. | For the Greeks, the smith was a solitary figure, whose techie was a jealously guarded secret connecting him to the powers of the underworld through the god Hephaestus. In contrast, the erga, or work, of the farmer was public, involving the wohole society and most of the gods. Both activities (smithing and farming) involved ritual, but in the case of techie the rituals were secret and individuals, whereas erga are public and collective. Indeed the calendar of agricultural rites is the master social calendar for annual and agricultural cycles are one and the same. |
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| == Lansing, J.S. (1991). Priests and programmers: Technologies of power in the engineered landscape of Bali. Princeton University Press. == | **Lansing, J.S. (1991). Priests and programmers: Technologies of power in the engineered landscape of Bali. Princeton University Press.** |
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| Further: | ====Further==== |
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| * Long Now Seminar by Steven Lansing - Perfect Order: A thousand years in Bali: http://longnow.org/seminars/02006/feb/13/perfect-order-a-thousand-years-in-bali/ | * Long Now Seminar by Steven Lansing - Perfect Order: A thousand years in Bali: http://longnow.org/seminars/02006/feb/13/perfect-order-a-thousand-years-in-bali/ |
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