After class today, write a 250-word summary of Ong’s “Writing is a Technology That Restructures Thought” and post it as a comment to this blog post. Your summary should include summary of the reading and summary of the class lecture. Include what you see as the main points from each.
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In the article, “Writing is a Technology that Restructures Thought” by Walter Ong, espouses that oral thinking is fundamentally different from literate thinking. The distinctive features of Homeric verse is almost entirely down to oral method. Oral knowledge needs to be repeated to be remembered. Communication is essential for oral communication to keep ideas remembered. Oral culture must think memorable thoughts, the patterns of mnemonics determine what can be thought and remembered. While writing detaches us from these constraints, it sustains mechanical thinking. Ong seemingly disagrees with the notion that writing consists of mechanical skills that all human beings should possess or learn in the same manner. He goes on to say that because we do not commonly “feel the influence of writing on our thoughts shows that we have interiorized the technology of writing so deeply that without tremendous effort we cannot separate it from ourselves or even recognize its presence and influence”
Ong makes the distinction between written and oral cultures He uses the example of an individual from a writing culture who will invariably imagine the letters that make up a word, when prompted with any given word. Whereas, a person from an oral culture will focus on the phonology of the word. Ong speaks of primary orality and secondary orality. Primary orality is face-to-face interaction, and communication. Secondary orality is electronic orality or orality conveyed by radio and television. Secondary orality grows out of highly literate cultures which depends on this electronic technology for diffusion of reading and writing.
He points to Plato’s objection to writing, and compares it to the identical argument made against computers today. Ong compares Plato’s condemnation of writing to complaints made against computers today. Plato makes the argument that writing is something inhuman, artificial, and a manufactured product, which are synchronous arguments laid against computers today. Plato argues that writing destroys memory, and those who use writing will become forgetful. Written text is non -interactive, but a person can articulate context. Written texts are dead, and incapable of acknowledging the reader, while speech is animated and receptive to its listener. Ong espouses the argument made by Hieronimo Squarciafico who stated that an abundance of books will make “men less studious.”
Ong asserts that writing separates the known from the knower. It promotes ‘objectivity.’ Though it seems to create knowledge as object, it can never accomplish this objective. Ong claims that writing separates us in space and time, meaning written words lack the connectivity between the reader and the writer. This is not the case with orality. Orality is interactive. The speaker and listener are vis-à-vis. Further, Ong expresses that oral cultures convey context through nuances and gestures, while written text has only words to offer context.
In the article “Writing is a Technology That Restructures Thought” Walter Ong focuses a lot on orality and literacy. To be illiterate means to lack a certain trait or ability. In terms of literacy, being illiterate means lacking the ability to read. Literacy in today’s culture is looked at as something essential, and that everyone should know how to read. Not being able to read is seen as a lack of a skill and should be learned the same way a child learns to tie their shoe or a teenager learns to drive. Before writing was known and practiced, it was hard to understand what writing did and its significance. Ong coined the term ‘orality’ and he split them into two types; primary and secondary. Primary orality is known as the quality of communication with no knowledge at all of writing. Secondary orality is the quality of communication in respect to electronics such as phones, radios and televisions. Secondary orality comes from cultures who usually have a high-literacy rate. Ong believes that we have “interiorized the technology of writing so deeply that without tremendous effort we cannot separate it from ourselves or even recognize its presence and influence.” This means that any person that has the ability to read, will envision a physical word that they are asked to think about. However someone who does not know how to read, when they think about a word they listen and think about the sequence of sounds that make up the word. Writing is asynchronous, meaning that it is permanent, and can be found. Speech however is synchronous, meaning that it disappears after the moment.
In Ong’s “Writing is a Technology That Restructures Thought” he goes on to talk about orality and literacy. In oral cultures everything is done through the mouth, any form of communication is done with words that are being said thus making oral communication very strong in these cultures. He goes to say that speech brings us together while writing keeps us separate. Speech is synchronize, it happens at the same time and goes away because it is said and also can be altered. While writing is asynchronous as it takes place in different times because it is written it is permanent and can be read in different times. The distance between speaker and audience in wider in literal culture. Ong goes on to describe primary and secondary orality. Primary orality is the orality of cultures with no knowledge at all of writing. Secondary orality is the electronic orality such as radio and television which grows out of high literacy culture depending for it’s invention and operation on the wide spread cultivation of writing and reading. Ong also argues that writing is a technology and that as a technology it changes the way human beings actually think. Writing operates the writer from the reader, it separates the person receiving the info to the person who wrote it. Omg goes on to say “We do not commonly feel writing on our thoughts shows that we have interiorized the technology of writing so deeply that without tremendous effort we cannot separate it from ourselves or even recognize it’s presence and influence” and by this he means that we take it for granted therefore we cannot recognize it’s presence. But in today’s world literacy is very important, it’s seen as something everyone should know how to do as we are now a literate society.
In the article, “Writing is a Technology that Restructures Thought” by Walter Ong, is mainly about the difference between literacy and orality. Oral knowledge which his speaking needs to be constantly practice or else you will be less efficient in saying difficult words or remembering how to say them. Oral culture itself is based off our thoughts, and the way we say them compared to literacy which is completely different. Although you have to practice it like speech it can be remember and you will never forget it due to muscle memory. Literacy itself is based off thinking. Ong here takes a stand telling us the difference between both literacy and oral. Writing cultures would end up making a word whereas an oral culture would just keep saying how the word should be sounded like. There are 2 different types of speech which is primary oral and secondary oral. Primary is based off a direct confrontation between 2 people whereas secondary is off the radio, tv, computers, and etc. Secondary orality is more technology based therefore it is a mix between reading and writing itself. Plato and Ong go back and forth on disagreements about the computers on how computers themselves destroy memory and those who use writing will forget how to write because of the computer where the opposite is for Ong’s argument. Ong’s spouse says how plenty of books will make people studious. Ong tells us how writing separates time and space which means words that are put down with the definition doesn’t have the same connection as saying it as a interaction with another person. In orality saying it to another person has more of an effect and the individual person themselves can read body languages and gestures.
In the article “Writing is a Technology that Restructures Thought” by Walter Ong talks about how oral culture is used and how it’s relevant to the written culture. Walter Ong used two important terms primary and secondary orality. Primary orality is the communication of with the understanding of any literacy. Before reading and writing were developed stories were told orally which could be easily forgotten. The second term secondary orality is when a highly literate society uses computers and smartphones as their way of communication. In the 21st century, the use of oral culture isn’t as popular as it once used to be. It has been taken over by new technologies such as phones, and computers that make it possible to communicate without having to orally communicate with someone face to face. The article also touches on how writing has diversified our thinking. With writing, you can always leave it and continue the though or someone else can possibly touch on it years later because it’s something physical. Writing tend to separate us for example through time because of writing we have the ability to read texts that were written before we were even born. In modern civilization, many people are more comfortable with the writing culture because without it we most likely we couldn’t be able to survive. Simple things such as filling out forms and applications are necessary for survival. On the other hand, writing can also be weakening then mind because of the lack of oral practice. For example, through the use of repetition, we are able to memorize and keep our minds stronger. Writing is more viable because it’s more permanent than the oral culture which is easily forgotten. The article explains the positive and negative aspects of oral and literate culture using different types of situations the past and present.
In this article “Writing is a Technology that Restructures Thought,” by Walter J. Ong, he says that literacy is not native human understanding. However, it is a well-informed process which has developed along with technology as humanity has moved forward. He has an argument about how many people do not make the differentiation between having an idea and how to write it on the paper. Walter analyzes Plato’s theory of how he writes the arbitrary human invitation.
Plato’s thinks that writing is a technology, as well as typing on the computer. We need tools and training to write anything. Walter said in his writing “Once reduced to space, words are frozen, and in a sense dead…removed from the living human lifeworld, its rigid fixity, assures its endurance and its potential for being resurrected into limitless living contexts by a limitless number of living readers. The dead, thing like the text has potentials far outdistancing those of the simply spoken word.” Ong is not abusing the technology of writing.
The popular thing is whatever facts or thoughts is being imprinted, and the knower whoever is writing or reading it. The differentiation is very important to make information and knowledge approachable to some but not others. Writing is very important knowledge building and civilizing technology.
Ong discusses the very interesting ideas of multiple realities existent in the middle of the human knowledge. He also makes the differentiation between the life that lives in the spoken traditions and the shape of death that takes place once thoughts are written down. These thoughts motions back to the literary log responsibility.
In the article Writing is a Technology that Restructures Thought by Walter Ong exploration of the facts of Ted Chang’s Truth of fact, Truth of Feeling are evident. Primary orality vs secondary orality challenges the assumed convention language holds.The “literate mind” is fundamentally different from the one who has primary orality or no knowledge of reading and writing. This is the difference between oral and literate cultures on a scale larger than the individual himself. To be literate suggests being able to use language to achieve an objective. The many facets communication branches this out into many competencies depending on their context. Digital literacy revolves around knowledge of using manmade devices to facilitate communication without face-to-face interaction. This itself rings true to Walter Ong’s secondary orality of making the transition to a society sustaining media through computers and data storage replacing traditional media. Then secondary orality is the return to oral culture through literacy with digital technologies much like the narrator’s word in Chang’s story Moving from a literate to digital culture which we can call a culture of secondary orality. Knowledge of verbally thinking one’s thoughts aloud with words is rendered innocuous when smartphones and W-Fi encourage mechanical skill over diligent practice. In his article, Ong vehemently argues that writing changes the way humans think, contemplating his opposing view the Greek philosopher Plato on whether this is the case. The executive function of physically writing crunch the amount of time used to print words mechanically at a slower rate.
Walter J. Ong was a Jesuit priest, a Roman Catholic scholarly religious congregation. Before his passing in 2003, Ong was also a historian, a professor, and a philosopher. Although Ong was inspired by his former professor Marshall McLuhan, notably known for his “The Medium is the Message”, Ong makes a point of saying that a message cannot be transferred in a medium because this is not how human communication works.
In his essay, “Writing is a Technology that Restructures Thought, like Chiang’s “The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling, Ong speaks on primary and secondary oralities with primary orality consisting of illiterate cultures, and secondary orality consisting of electronic orality created by high-literacy cultures. Ong expresses that in spite of writing being a relatively new technology, it is, actually, a byproduct of sorts of primary orality. Since its introduction and acceptance into human society, writing has become engrained, or interiorized as Ong says, in the lives of high-literacy cultures comprising a world filled with sounds that are visually processed. If someone were to ask one of these individuals to think of a word, the person would envision the, actual, word. In ancient oral cultures, information is personalized, and knowledge is stored in stories, a noetic operation, that makes the information easier to retain and recall.
Ong informs us that writing was originally viewed as an intrusion, very much like how some view the newer technologies to be an intrusion and disruption to our daily lives when discussing Platonic ideas. Ong explains that these technologies are critical to what he calls transformations of consciousness by providing the proximity and the distance that he says are required for evolution of consciousness. In short, technology shouldn’t be shunned. To take it back to McLuhan’s “Medium is the Message”, we should embrace the technology while still being mindful of what it reverses and/or obsolesces.