"Rob a culture of literacy, and rumor replaces record, anecdotes supersede annals. The drive to cooperation remains, but cooperation itself, on a grand scale, becomes impractical. The dream of universal understanding fades. Nations are reborn, and, within them, peoples—reborn or invented. Models of the world proliferate, and science—beyond a rude natural philosophy—becomes impossible. Religions multiply and speciate, fetishizing wildly. Parochialism arises in all its finery, speaking argot, wearing folk dress, dancing its ethnic dance."