#24 - Folklorist: Oral traditions are often preferable to

[silent7706]

Thank you for your elaborated response Jeremy!

[alexis.la]

Hi there! After reading the forum here I can understand why D is correct.

But, I picked E. (which apparently only 2% of people do) so my thinking was clearly wonky here.
Here is my thoughts: I need to supply an answer that validates why oral traditions are preferable to written ones.

Some of the key statements in my opinion are: "writing has no limits, it can proliferate to the point where writer and reader both become confused" and "Since oral traditions are dependent on memory, what is useless and irrelevant is quickly eradicated" which to me is suggesting that written traditions don't eradicate useless/irrelevant stuff, therefore they might contain these things.

Answer D contains a similar structure to the conclusion, mainly they both have one thing being preferable to another. But to me answer E is articulating something something the author doesn't explicitly say: that oral traditions are more efficient and accurate. Albeit that isn't synonymous with 'clarity'. But the answer still supports that oral traditions are preferable, because they're presented as being clearer than written; they're less convoluted/twisted.

Is the big problem then that "Ideas that cannot be discussed clearly should not be discussed at all."? That is a bit of a stretch, and definitely not something the author suggests.

I'm rambling, but let me know what the obvious problem with E is

[atierney]

Hi Alexis,

Don't worry, this is definitely a principle that I may or may not agree with, and, regardless, certainly, sometimes, have difficulties abiding by!

Anyway, yes, E is probably the closest contender, with the idea being that proliferation can (but not always) create confusion, and therefore, where that happens, speech is preferred. The problem with that however, is that the point being made in the passage is not about the content of the writing (the ideas themselves), but rather about the tendency to write unclear, In other words, unclear writing makes the means of communication useless, but not necessarily the ideas attempting to be communicated, even to the extent that there is a question as to whether they may be addressed clearly via any form of communication including oral presentation. This latter point is not mentioned in the argument, and therefore should not be mentioned in the central principle upon which the argument relies.

D however, both addresses the point of proliferation and why oral traditions' ability to eradicate the useless and irrelevant is to be preferred.

Let me know if you have further questions on this.