oatmeal for dinner

The first four chapters of Walter Ong’s Orality and Literacy introduced us to the meaning and beginnings of orality, and the transition from an illiterate to literate world. One of the points of the book is to examine how the shift from orality to literacy changes our way of thinking. What I found particularly effective in demonstrating the aforementioned shift were the experiments conducted by Alexander Luria. He showed both illiterate and literate subjects a circle and asked them to identify it. The illiterate subjects said it was a plate, sieve, or the moon, for example. Conversely, the literate subjects plainly said it was a circle. He also showed four pictures, one of a log, one of a hammer, one of a machete, and one of a saw, and asked subjects to pick the one that did not belong. The illiterate subjects picked the machete, because it had the same function as a saw, but did not perform as well. Literate subjects would discard the log, because the other three are tools and the log is a material. When the illiterate subjects were asked about this, it seemed like a silly question– without the log, you can’t make anything. To me, both of the examples above illustrate a different perspective which I find refreshing and free– to see a circle and think of a moon, or to see the four objects and not immediately categorize them, but instead study their potential and usefulness. But Luria quickly stomps on my initial, euphoric reaction when he asks the subjects to describe themselves, and describe a car to someone who has never been in one. The illiterate man was unable to do so, and says that they need to ride in a car in order to understand, while the literate man can articulate how a car works and paint a general picture. What if the curious, car-virgin has no access to a car? If our world stayed illiterate, he/she would never understand what a car is, as well as many other inventions in the world. To me, that example alone justifies the shift to literacy. We lose a significant chunk of personal communication, but we gain a wealth of knowledge that transcends time and space. As for the meaning and origins of orality, I had a difficult time wrapping my head around these first two chapters. I was taken aback with Saussure’s stance on writing and orality; he considered writing to be a compliment to speech. And Ong, though he pointed out the benefits and breakthroughs that have come from the written word, though of writing as a residue. Maybe it’s because of the generation I was raised in, or because I’m a non-vocal person, but I’ve always thought of writing as a crutch for thoughts, at the very least. It’s the foundation on which thoughts are built. People usually write a speech first, and then project it onto others. Poets craft a poem with pen and paper, and then read it aloud at a cafe. But Ong did a fantastic job in defining orality, and I was grateful that he could see things from the perspective of typography enthusiasts like me! He mentioned that in typography we see things as labels “out there” on a page, but oralists see words as power. An oralist’s dictionary consists of facial expressions, gestures, and changes in pitch, instead of text on a page, like what we think of today. I’m not very familiar with Plato’s work, so I also thought it was interesting to hear Plato’s view on writing. Writing makes thoughts a product, writing weakens the mind and cripples memory, writing is unresponsive and passive. But I liked how he pointed out the irony in all of this, how Plato wrote these thoughts down. One of Ong’s main points in the fact that writing is “context-free”, meaning that it’s detached from the author. He illustrates the benefits of shifting to a a visual-based society, instead of remaining in the oral state. Unlike the illiterate subjects in Luria’s experiments, we are able to express ourselves more clearly and articulately, and see ourselves in relation to time.

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