Marcia was now flabbergasted. "Mistress Jennifer. You're kidding me right? One of the games our parents have us kids play is 'telegraph.' A message is passed from kid to kid to see how garbled the end result can be, and you expect me to believe that this is a good way to transmit information?"
"You're right, we do have our children play that game, but not to teach them that verbal communication is bad. We do it to show them the pitfalls of it, so that they will learn to do it better."
Marcia was clearly not convinced. "I'm sorry Mistress Jennifer, but I just don't see the benefits of not writing down what you expect of people."
"Look, the laziest most ineffective thing I could do to get you to learn this kingdom is to throw a book at you and say, 'Here. Read this.' If I am really interested in making sure you understand this kingdom, I am going to sit down with you, and walk you through everything, making sure I get the feedback I need that tells me you're grasping this… Like right now, you clearly are not."
After pausing for a moment, Lady Jennifer continued, "The real problem with the written word is that it carries far more weight than it deserves. This makes it a lot easier to re-interpret it in a manner never intended by the author."
The look on Marcia's face now bordered on mild annoyance. "Huh? … Mistress Jennifer, you have now totally, and completely, lost me. I would say the written word makes it far more likely that people will get the words you intend"
"The words, yes, but not necessarily the message." Again, Lady Jennifer called upon another of her stories that she has told time and time again to new initiates. "As an example, take the 'Roe vs Wade' decision by the Supreme Court. This is the one that says women have the constitutionally protected right to an abortion.
"Imagine for a second that you had a time machine so that you could go back in time and talk to every single person who voted for our constitution, and each of its amendments. Then ask them if what they were voting for was intended to give women the right to kill their unborn children. I would be shocked if a single person answered yes, yet the vast majority of people in this country believe the constitution protects a woman's right to an abortion.
"Now, how do you suppose something like that could happen?"
For the second time today Marcia found herself in complete doubt of something she had just been completely sure of. This wasn't about the Roe vs. Wade decision. As a good Christian girl, she never believed in the validity of it for a second. It was easy for her to see why so many people believed it was so, but she had previously never given much thought to how something like this could have happened.
Lady Jennifer gave Marcia a few more moments to digest what she said, then continued. "I could go on and on, and cite example after example where messages are pulled out of our constitution that where never intended to be there. There are even examples of complete reinterpretation of things such as what happened with the second amendment.
"Here is an amendment stuck into the constitution with nine others to form what has been called the Bill of Rights from the very beginning. These rights were intended to protect the individual from the government, yet there is a large percentage of citizens who think that the second of those ten amendments is about insuring the government has the right to arm its military. The mere notion that governments need any rights is ludicrous, yet the gun-grabbers in this nation have no problems with defining it that way.
"And how does something like this occur?" Lady Jennifer asked rhetorically.
All Marcia could do was shrug that she didn't know.
"It's all because of the misplaced respect and authority given to the written word. Now don't get me wrong. The written word does have its place. It just can't be relied upon the way so many people do. Oh, and your non-verbal response earned you more spanks."
"Yes Mistress Jennifer," replied Marcia.
"If you want to ensure that a message gets delivered, you need people you can trust to pass it along. You inherently know this to be true about oral versus written accounts. If you happen to hear about something that occurred, would you rather read a witness' account, or talk to the witness directly?
"Quite frankly, I doubt that there has been a single law passed by any legislature that has not been used by a judge, or a lawyer, in a manner never intended by those who voted for it. The real sad thing is how so few people in this nation even consider this to be a problem."
Marcia had to agree with what Lady Jennifer was saying. It would go a long way to explaining why things are the way they are in this country. Yet she wasn't completely convinced. "Mistress Jennifer, what you say makes sense, but I can't shake the feeling that things would be better if we wrote down what is expected of us. As long as we are aware of the possible problems, as you have stated, they could be avoided. I'm sure there have been miscommunications down the chain of command that could have been avoided if they were in writing. And what about someone intentionally changing what is being passed down? Without having it in writing, how would you ever know?"
Lady Jennifer replied, "Oh… there have been some real knee-slappers of twisted communications, but relying on the written word has far more pitfalls, because when you use the written word you are inevitably going to wind up relying on it.
"When you read something you are only going to seek clarification if something doesn't make sense enough to go through the effort of contacting the author. When you get something directly from a person, any amount of confusion on your part can be cleared up immediately.
"As far as someone intentionally changing the communication, the written word is a poor protector against that. If there is someone along your chain of command that cannot be trusted, then our kingdom has bigger problems than intentionally changed messages.
"The foundation of our kingdom is trust, and trust doesn't just happen. It is carefully built through real and solid relationships. One of the key features of oral communication is that it requires you to know who the receiver of the information is. Written communication is the preferred method when you don't want to deal with those you are delivering the information to.
"I can see by the look on your face that you're still not buying this. I think this is another thing you'll have to trust me on. Much of your doubt comes from your prejudice against oral communication, and I can assure you, we are much better at it than you are."
Shifting gears, Lady Jennifer went on "OK then, where were we? That's right; we were discussing the sexual politics of this kingdom.
Source: reddit.com/r/eroticliterature/comments/2pqbvf/next_generation_christian_kingdom_ch02_marcia