For this after-class writing assignment, please leave a comment on this blog post of at least 250 words summarizing the reading and the lecture in class. In particular, write about the shift from oral to literate culture and literate to digital culture in your response.
Check the syllabus linked above in the site header for Tuesday’s upcoming reading.
In the short story, āThe Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling,ā by Ted Chiang, the reader encounters two narratives. In the first narrative, the reader learns about the fractured relationship between the narrator, from whose perspective the story is told, and his daughter, Nicole. The relationship became fractured after an argument where the narrator vividly recalls Nicole telling him that she was the reason for her motherās departure from the family. The second narrative takes place in the mid nineteenth century, and tells the story of Jijingi, a Tiv person in West Africa, who is a member of the Shangev clan. The story of the Shangev Clan and the Shangev clan is narrated in the third person. Jijingi learns literacy -reading and writing -from a European missionary named Moseby. The Tiv people are an oral culture, and the elders have communicated their lineage through storytelling. Both narratives have similar themes about the influence of āliteraryā in their respective cultures. In the first narrative, the narrator is resistant to the emerging shift from a literate culture to a digital one. The reader encounters this shift when the narrator states that he remains faithful to his keyboard. In the second narrative, western written literacy threatens the oral culture of the Tiv people. The Tiv people possess a āpractical literacyā in skills such as farming, building, and bushcraft. While Moseby possesses literacy in the traditional sense, he lacks the practical knowledge essential for living among the Shangev clan. He is unable to help in the building of the hut, and he is unskilled in the farming methods. The Tiv people have respect for the nuance of an emotional right or truth in their language, but they are unaware of the unambiguity of right or truth within the written westernized language.
The first narrative is told by an older journalist; he shares with the reader his experiences, his concerns, and his research on a new technology, āRemem,ā created by a company named Whetstone. This technology is designed to allow people to continually and easily access their lifelogs, video recording of their daily lives, and it is a form of artificial memory. The reader also learns about the tense relationship between the narrator and his daughter, Nicole. Nicole is digitally literate in Rememās technology, with an advanced search algorithms that grants its user a photographic memeory, whiles her dad, the narrator, uses an older technology, the keyboard.The narrator express concerns about the new technology of Remem which seemingly supports this shift from an organic memory to an artificial one.People, in this story, document their entire lives through recorded body cams that they call Lifelogs. After being resistant to this new technology, the narrator relents and reviews a memory of an argument that led to his contentious relationship with his daughter. He learns through one of Nicoleās lifelogs that he was in fact the aggressor in the argument, andthat he had not been the model parentwhich he had imagined through the years.
The second narrative is set in Africa: it is about a young man, Jijingi, who is taught literacy-reading and writing – by a missionary. Jijingi struggles to synthesize his oral culture with his written literacy. When an issue of genealogy threatens the Jijingi clan, literacy becomes problematic.Members of Jijingiās clan, the Shangev clan does not live in close proximity to one another. Some live in the West, and have a relationship with another clan named Jechira, while Jijingiās clan is concordant with a nearby clan named Kwande.There is a thread in the story about the difference between the practical, exact truth and the emotional, functional truth. In Jijingiās language, there are two words for, ātrue.ā Mimirepresents what is right and vough represents what is precise. This, as the title of the narrative implies, is key: the idea that perhaps the exact truth is useful and vital, but also that the emotional truth should not be disregarded.Literacy poses a conundrum for the oral culture of the Tiv people. Elders of the clan value Mimi, while the emerging written culture seem to emphasize vough.
The European administrative office keeps recorded genealogy of all the clans. After visiting the administrative office where records of the clanās genealogy, Jijingi learns that elders in the western lands, who claimed the Shangev was a descendant of the Jechira clan, were right. This complicates matters because Jijingiās clan was always told that they were descendants of the Kwande clan.While the written culture of the West places value on documentation and less value on subjective experiences, Oral cultures, such as the one of the Tiv people, encourages the values of individual experiences over documentation.
The protagonist, we find at the end, has fictionalized the story of Jijingi to reveal a truth through the use of narrative: to make a point about the complex and nuanced nature of ātruthā and variedmeaning of literacy. While in the first narrative, the narrator cedes that Rememhas allowed him to reexamine the past and reevaluate his present self.He tacitly acknowledges that organic memory is faulty and a product of our collective experiences, and the shift from a literate culture to a digital culture has both advantages and disadvantages.
Colin Alli
In the short story “The Truth of Fact, Truth of Feeling” by Ted Chiang consists of two narratives. One begins with a journalist with a cocky attitude who has a distant relationship with his daughter Nicole and his wife Angela. The second narrative is a story about a Western missionary Moseby who goes to a region in Africa that is populated by the Tiv people for the purpose of collecting taxes for the new architecture that was being built, and to teach them how to read and write in order to have a business relationship.
The first narrative takes place in the future where technology has slightly advanced, but the narrator is a traditionalist who likes to hold on to the organic ways of doing things. Nicole his estranged daughter uses a technology called Remem that helps her recollect her memories through a lifelog whenever she subvocalizes. The narrator believes that since Remem is suppose to recall your memories accurately it would cause arguments in relationships. He begins to use the lifelog, and it shows a piece of his memory when he had a harsh dispute with his daughter, and she walks out on him. The narratorās stubborn attitude caused his own memory to deceive him and caused him to believe that he was being victimized. After he remembers what actually happened he went to visit his daughter and they begin to talk to one another. Remem was his savior in being able to begin to restore his relationship with his daughter Nicole. The change between literate to digital technology was a challenging concept for the narrator to come to terms with. Once he was investigated his curiosity he saw that new advancements in technology wasnāt as bad as he thought. The narrator faced his doubts about Remem head on, and he was able to make a positive change in his life.
The second narrative shows how writing can be used, as a form of technology because writing uses some kind of tool to make language into something visible that is able to shared. At the beginning the missionary Moseby was useless because he didnāt know any of the groundwork to being Tiv member such as building huts or hunting, but eventually he gains the knowledge. While he was in Africa he got close to one of the Tiv people named Jijingi who is used to communicating orally, but becomes curious about writing when he realizes itās another form of communication. Jinjingi couldnāt wrap his head around how he could whatever words or thoughts he had in his head down onto a piece of paper so Moseby offered to teach him. Soon Jijingi got absorbed into learning how to write he began to lose sight of the value of oral communication, which is what his people are dependent on. He gets in an argument with ne his elders name Sabe over who is going to be next of kin, and Jijinhi pulls out a piece of paper to show Sabe who it will be. Sabe became upset because to him next of kin isnāt something that should be decided from a piece of paper but closeness between the Tiv people. Jijingi realized the wisdom of his elderās words and retired from writing. The transition between oral to literate culture for Jijingi was essentially to teach him how to turn his words into writing, but it ended bruising his relationship with his Tiv members. Technology always grows but as human it’s our job to question it’s growth, and see what it effects our lives to the the world around us.
In the short story, āThe Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling,ā by Ted Chiang shows us a completely different way to interpret a story. When we first read the story it is about two different types of stories from different times. In the first story it explains a story of an man who has a very broken relationship with his own daughter. The narrator himself goes into detail on how his daughter and him have a very bad relationship. It starts with the daughter uses new technology whereas the narrator has a hard time with this. The narrator himself has a hard time adapting to the new technologies where as his daughter uses the new technology very easily which cause friction between both of them. The narrator is more old school and tends to use more organic ways to do things where as his daughter Nicole uses technology called Remem to recall your memories. The narrator then decides to use the lifelog which shows an argument between him and his daughter which caused her to walk out of his life leaving him all alone. After he remembers what exactly happens he goes to his daughter and they speak one on one. Eventually they start to patch up their relationship. The narrator undergoes changes when he uses new technology he was able to get his daughter back and he was able to conquer his fear of using new technology.
The second story is about the Tiv people who use oral culture mainly. Their entire culture is based off storytelling. The character Moseby is a character is very different from the Tiv people. They are very skilled in building, farming, and bushcraft where as Moseby is not very good at any of these. In the story he fails to build and farm. Although Moseby is very bad at these things he shows that he has very good writing skills. The story shifts onto the main character named Jijingi who has very strong communication skills, but he gets interested in writing and he learns from Moseby. Jijingi eventually starts to see less value in oral communication. This comes into conflict with new technology by writing being the new technology and the old technology is oral communication. Jijingi gets confronted by an elder who asks him about the next of kin where Jijingi replies by pulling out a piece of paper instead of verbally telling him. The elder gets very upset because the magnitude of the situation is very real and it canāt be answer by just writing down the answer it required a lot more. The elder soon lectures Jijingi on why oral communication is important and he retires from writing.
In these two stories we see how new technology can help us greatly, but at the same time it can make us lose sight of things. In the two stories shows the pros and the cons of new technology. With new technology constantly developing we need to be sure to keep some organic traditions and not forget about everything.
In the short story āThe Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feelingā Ted Chiang explores the concept of writing, in two different time periods. In the short story Chiang intertwines two different narratives to compare how writing has evolved from the mid twentieth century to what it could possibly evolve to in the near future. One of the narratives in Chiangās story focuses on the Tiv tribe, a civilization in western africa. The main character Jijingi learns to write from Mosbey, a missionary who comes to collect taxes for the roads they built. During the mid twentieth century it was common for people in the tiv tribe to communicate orally. Throughout this narrative Chiang talks about the advantages of having a written culture as opposed to having only an oral culture. With having a written culture it is easier for Jijingi to keep track of stories and things that were said in court, instead of relying on a personās memory. With a written culture things could be kept āexact and preciseā. As Jijingi learns to write, he starts to develop this arrogant attitude. He starts to disrespect Sabe and the elders of the village, which starts to change his relationships with them. Jijingiās new ability to write compares to Remem, the futuristic way of keeping track of events. In the second narrative of Chaingās story he introduces Remem, a search tool that search through memories captured through lifelogging. Remem plays clips from past memories when the individual references or sub-vocalizes any sort of past event. While this may seem helpful in many different ways, it has shown to put a strain on any relationship, and is even taking away the human capacity to be able to remember anything. As relationships depends on forgiving and forgetting arguments, with Remem it makes it harder to forget, if you have constant access to a video clip of the argument. Throughout the narrative the narrator struggles with the relationship he thought he had with his daughter, Nicole. He always found his daughter to be troublesome and strong minded when she was a teenager. He claims that when Nicole sixteen she took out her built up anger of her mother leaving on him. He believes that she blames him for her mother leaving and says that she would be better off without him. Now many years later with the help of Remem, the narrator now realizes that he was the one to say those hurtful things to his daughter and tries to mend the broken relationship he thought he fixed many years ago. In both narratives Chiang explores how technology evolves as time moves on and shows both the positive and negative aspects of it. As technology evolves it makes it easier to access information, however it is proven to make relationships a bit more difficult to deal with.
In Ted Chiangās āThe Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feelingā he writes about two different stories, one which takes place in the future and one which takes place in the past. Chiang switches back and forth between the two stories to show comparisons and contrasts between the two. In the first story it describes a man, the narrative, as someone who isnāt too familiar with new technology. There is a new video memory system that has come out called Remem and this lets a person record every memory of their lives, if they choose to, and they can refer back to it at anytime. It goes on to describe the narrator’s estranged relationship with his wife and daughter. His wife had left him and his daughter shortly after having her so he was left to raise her on his own. While this was difficult he remembers how at one point he and his daughter had a very big argument once in her teenage years. In his mind the argument went with her getting upset at him, telling him that heās the reason why her mother left and ended with her storming out the house and not coming home that night. But upon experimenting with Remem he finds that, that was not the case. While using her memory tapes he seeās that he was the one who told those things to her. He had thought through his own memory that he was the victim in this case and that he was the one who mended their relationship but it was the other way around and he wouldn’t have known so if he never used Remem. Although he was so against this technology if it weren’t for it his wouldve kept thinking he was the victim in that whole argument when in fact it was him who put a strain on their relationship and her the one who fixed it.
In Chiangās alternating story against this one it sets place in a more early time in Africa. It focuses on the Tiv people and these people communicated everything orally, they didn’t have any new technologies like in the first story. There is a person named Moseby who comes to the tribe from Europe to collect taxes and he teaches one of their own people, Jijingi, how to write and he is one of the very few in their tribe that can. Now becomes so infused with writing that he thinks that only truth are the ones that are written, so when the europeans want to combine tribes they must look to see which tribe they are most related to. Although the elders tell Jijingi that they will join one tribe because they know that they are most related to that one Jijing goes into town to check the records and when the records tell him otherwise he reports back. Upon reporting back they tell Jijingi that it must be written wrong and that the Europeans must’ve written it wrong after all the elders would know best. They accuse him of forgetting his culture as they are an oral culture not a writing one and this technology has made him forgotten who he is. In the end Jijingi agrees and reflects on himself.
Each story explores how new technology affects both main characters. On one hand it helped the narrator figure out that he was not the victim and that his own memory was that of what he had made up, while the other story showed how new technology was making the main character forgot his roots. I believe Chiang chose both these stories to show us two different point of views of technology, the good and the bad. It affects everyone differently and Chiang portrays that in both his stories. While on one hand it helped the narrator of the first story see the real truth on the other hand with Jijiangi it only made him forgot his roots and what his culture is based upon.
ā the TRUTH OF FACT, THE TRUTH OF FEELINGā BY TED CHIANG is a short story in which the reader is exposed to two different narratives one in which he realizes the severances relationship between the narrator and his daughter Nicole clearly remembering when his daughter told him in an argument that she was the reason for her mother leaving the family and another narrative discussing a different time period in the mid nineteenth century discussing the story of Jijingi who is part of the Shangev clan. the story talking about the Shangev clan is told through the third person.
and in the second part of the story describes a tiv person named Jijing learning literacy from a European missionary named Moseby. Moseby starts teaching him after he tells Jijing the story of Adam and Eve with the evil snake. the Tiv people are of an oral culture meaning the elders have managed to communicate their lives and ancestors through story telling. the Oral culture was differring from one to another. Jijingi recoeded a different dissagemenr that breaks out a way he will need to move from a step to another. Jijings learned how to read and write with his own dialect.
We can sometimes feel that feelings are more likely to be an essay, not a story. āThe truth of fact, the truth of feelingsā gave us many different clues and plans that tells us many different thoughts. Surprisingly, testing the technology has many reactions for the not named narrator.
In Ted Chiangās āThe Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feelingā we are granted access into the lives of two characters who are deliberating over the pros and cons of the role technology will play in their lives. Although the narratives do not occur at the same time, one in the early to mid-20th century and the other sometime in the future, both stories revolve heavily around the narratives that human beings choose to accept as accurate and/or right throughout the course of their lives.
The first narrator that we are introduced to remains nameless throughout the story. In the beginning we learn that he is somewhat of a purist who has concerns about the purpose, power, and the control that technology seems to be assuming over the lives of human beings. We also learn that he is a journalist, a husband who is estranged from his wife, and father to his daughter, Nicole, who he had a tumultuous relationship with during her adolescence.
Initially he is opposed to accepting the release of Remem, Whetstoneās newest wearable technology. Remem functions as a search engine whose most distinguishing feature is that it is activated by keywords that are either subvocalized or used in conversations to recall and play back memories. In spite of being opposed to the technology, believing that it would lead to a society of human beings turned cyborgs lacking the ability to rely on their own memories to reminisce fondly or forgive/forget transgressions, the narrator decides to uphold his journalistic integrity by testing Remem out for himself before writing an article expressing his distaste to its inception.
The narrator decides to use an argument had with Nicole when she was a teenager that has caused him an immense amount of pain to execute this task. Ultimately the technology that he was so averse to using is what allows him to see the part he played in the argument that day, and the pain he had caused Nicole throughout her teenage years. The narrator learns that Remem adds more to the human experience than he originally thought. It can be used to assess experiences, and provides an opportunity for the user to grow.
Jijingi, a young man from the Tiv village in Western Africa, is the other main character in this story. Jijingi is introduced to the concept of written culture by a European missionary named Moseby who has been visiting with the Tiv people. Accustomed only to oral culture where history is passed down via the art of oral storytelling, a combination of words spoken and an accompanying performance of some sorts, Jijingi is intrigued by a culture so different from his own. He embraces the technology, allows Moseby to teach him how to read and write. Oral culture has aided the Tiv people in conveying concepts that are integral to their culture: mimi, what is right, and vough, what is accurate and precise. Intrigued by a culture so different from his own, Jijingi chooses to embrace written technology, and decides to learn to read and write.
Although a proud Tiv, Jijingi realizes there are inconsistencies in Tiv stories, which is what causes him to look to written culture as an accurate means of recordkeeping. With this in mind, Jijingi decides to present a piece of written evidence as a means of helping settle a village dispute to Sabe, a village elder. After his conversation with Sabe, Jijingi begins to appreciate the Tivās principles of mimi, what is right, and vough, what is accurate and precise, on a deeper level. These concepts are integral parts of Tiv culture and cannot be pushed entirely to the side for written technology. Jijingi chooses to remain true to his village and culture by maintaining their oral traditions while still using written technology to capture other, less important things.
In both narratives, the main characters do a bit of self-reflecting while determining the meanings of mimi and vough with regard to the role they will allow technology to play in their lives. Both characters choose to accept the technologies for their capabilities, albeit one more so than the other.