Blog on "Writing is a technology..."

"Nevertheless, by contrast with natural, oral speech, writing is completely artificial. There is no way to write "naturally"...To live and understand fully, we need not only proximity but also distance. This writing provides for, thereby accelerating the evolution of consciousness as nothing else before it does"( Ong 23).

I thought this essay was very interesting. I can recall from other classes the general assumption that a culture of people can only be defined as "civilized" only when they have acquired a written language. Although the author of this essay does parallel both the attributes of written and oral communication it does seem that he would be in agreement with that. Writing does create a distance between the "knower" and the "known" and within that space there is perception without borders/constraint and from that position of "openness" human beings have created and acquired so much knowledge and art. However, when Ong talks about using more words to explain definitions of words it seems apparent to me that the human mind can then become so conceptual that it blurs the direct experience of the world with our internal projections of reality;thus creating our own worlds so to speak, "living in our heads". It seems then that writing does become a paradox.

Ong then uses the "tree definition" to illustrate how oral traditions are somewhat limited as well. He says, "What is a tree? Define a tree", the illiterate peasant replies, "Why should I? Everyone knows what a tree is" (Ong 29). He believes that oral speech and though narrativizes experiences/environment. I am in agreement with that. I also think that oral speech provides that space for reflection and personal interpretation. What would happen if we were to look an object and not readily define it with words? In my opinion creativity takes place within that spaciousness and that is what art is inspired by. I also thought it was interesting how he described the mental processes of oral speech as describing and interpretation. He says that an orator can describe something but when asked to repeat it they use words to further articulate their interpretations of what was said instead of using the same wording. I find that within our society of both heavily used, often blended oral and written speech, I possess a sort of dualistic literacy. So then it seems that the most effective speech would be a collective of both written and verbal. With written speech generating proximity, logic, universal knowledge and oral speech being the spaciousness in which we as humans have furthered our creativity and technological advances.