Milieu
Recently read an article where Walter Ong presented literacy - the ability to read and write - as a technology for the restructuring of the mind. He then discussed the ways literacy changes our relationships with reality and concluded with the effects of these changes on us as humans in relation to ourselves and to society.
Upon review, the use of the word “technology” had me questioning its accuracy. Here, I summarize his reasonable answers to my questioning and my eventual synthesis.
Meaning
Firstly, technology is the application of techniques towards certain ends. So, this led me to two questions:
The answer to both is: literacy enables lucid, intimate thinking and experience by developing and enhancing the practice of separation.
Method
With this I started to see his point about literacy’s methods. It imbues this habit of separation by:
Merit
Looking around and within, I saw that this separation can indeed make the practioner anti-embodying and more pro-experiencing or pro-observing. And as observation skills improve, five core skills sharpen on an ever growing trajectory, viz:
When this observation becomes a lifestyle, one may notice an increasingly intimate, effable reconstruction of thought and reality. This way we can deal with both on their own terms and as a result, build better maps of ourselves and the world.
Memory
In his discussion, he does continually reference the advantage of orality - the practice of speaking (singing included), and listening -, in that, while literacy is essential for continuously improving clarity, it is nowhere near as efficient as orality in terms of memory. By this, I mean orality helps things stick in the mind in ways literacy cannot, using tools our minds prefer, such as melody, epithets, proverbs, repetition, rhyme, hyperbole etc.
Moral
Therefore, to build better maps of reality and thought, make writing and reading a lifestyle. However, to ensure memory in this lifestyle, use the many compressed, formulaic structures of orality.