"In the ancient world - indeed, until the dawn of modern nation-states — the power of reading actually did mean something like membership to a secret elite; linguistic knowledge once counted in many places as the provenance of sorcery. In Middle English, the word ‘glamour’ developed out out of the word ‘grammar.’ The expression for magic comes from the word for grammar."

Peter Sloterdijk’s ‘Rules for the Human Zoo: a response to The Letter on Humanism’
This post is posted on Wednesday 26 September 2012.
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Tagged as: philosophy peter sloterdijk heidegger humanism lit critical thought quote philosopher cultural anthropology language magic history glamour etymology grammar literacy reading greek roman
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