Blog 3

In high technology societies Literacy is expected and even natural



Literates are above illiterates because they can communicate in a sophisticated manner


Literates can thing of a word both as the letters that make it up and the meaning and what it is used for


A standard structure in oral history is used as a mnemonic device


Plato thought of writing as an “external, alien. Technology, as many people today think of computers”


We take writing for granted – we forget that it’s a technology


“Once reduced to space, words are frozen and in a sense dead.”


Words have potential to outdistance spoken language – Paradox is that written text means nothing except a relationship to spoken words


1) Writing separates (known from knower) and makes words into objects with letter of the alphabet. Physical text is not knowledge


2) Interpretation of word-for-word-repetition is different in primarily oral communities (they do not give a word-for-word retell they paraphrase)


3) “Writing distance the word from sound” – not total or permanent though


4) Writing distances the speaker from the hearer – can communicate when not near each other


5) In spoken words are always part of context – writing allows meaning s to be taken from their original state


6) Writing looses most of the context of spoken words so it makes it easier to understand writing


7) “Writing separates past from present”


8) Writing separate “administration” from other social activities – “administration” is not in oral


9) Logic and persuasion is clearly defined writing


10) “Writing separates academic learning from wisdom”


11) Writing divides society – “high” language from “low” language, dominant form non-dominant


12) Writing gets rid of the “low” language dialect and replaces it with higher quality


13) Distance the abstract from the real


14) Philosophy has been made possible through writing.


Writing can change thinking


Print and electronics continue to develop rapidly


Computers can be self writing to a degree