Baron

What I found most interesting while reading this book was the history or the computer, and writing utensils. Their first purposes weren't for writing at all - and their transformation is unexpected. As an artist myself, I liked reading about he development of the pencil, and Henry David Thoreau's seemed obsession with creating the best pencil - which he did great lengths to do. Pencils found problems in the supply of graphite, and pure graphite at that. Thoreau enhanced the pencil's advancement as a technology through the changes and 'reinventions' he made of it. He was able to make the lead more pure and smooth, as well as stronger in form. Pencils are very specific, and varying when used in drawing and the advancements that they have made from conception to the variety today is huge, even if it is just a meek pencil. Computers weren't created for publishing and writing necessarily as much as it was for computing information, inputing information, and completing algorithms - but today computers are a main source of writing through our culture. This is mainly because many of the uses of a computer include communication - which almost requires writing on a computer (with the exception of audio recording) to other entities. Writing has taken over this technology.

Achebe part II

Many things in Chinua Achebe's, "Things Fall Apart" parallel to the topics of literacy and orality. Language and fragility particularly influence cultures and shape the way they develop differently than literate cultures. Oral types of cultures develop independently of one another - this I found particularly interesting. Cultures who are near each other may only communicate very frequently if they are oral cultures, this is because it take much more effort to communicate. So the harder it is to communicate the less they probably will, it becomes less valuable. Literate cultures can subvent this inconvenience of difficulty in communication. By writing down information, only a messenger or way of sending messages is needed to communicate. Without this writing, an oral culture would require an orator to remember and recite the necessary information and then must meet with and speak to listening audiences in order to send information. this oral type is more labor intensive and leads to cultures intermixing less. In this way oral cultures seem to develop more independently from one another. These cultures may, as a result, value traditional cultural ways without the diversity of frequent communication of other unique cultures. Frequent communication with other independent and different cultures inherently would produce more productive activity. I know that by colliding more diverse ideas you can reach the best conclusions, develop the best ideas and more. This can be seen in the ways that many contributing ideas develop the best plans in teams like in sports, business, and nature.

Achebe part I

Orality was one subject I found represented in multiple different parts of Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart”. I noticed first when Okonkwo’s tribe has one member represented who is the town’s orator, which makes sense for the setting of the story, which takes place in suggested oral society. Later, what I found more interesting was Okonkwo’s failed harvest, one that he collected only part of his crop from due to a poor winter. In a time Oknokwo felt called for silence his father tries to soothe his son(17). This interestingly points out the importance of silence that is overlooked traditionally. I can imagine many scenarios where people feel the need to fill silence with words – whether just sarcasm or small talk many people are avoidant of silence in situations. Why? Silence makes people feel awkward, but I appreciate the value that can come with it.  In the essay by Simon Gikandi, “Achebe and the Invention of Literature” was discussed. I found it interesting that Achebe didn’t originally plan to be a writer, much less one that represents African culture so well through his writing. Achebe represents the African culture through anecdotes and and a lens damaged by British colonialism – I am interested to hear what other scholars have to say about Achebe’s work.

Ong Part II

Finishing Ong's "Orality and Literacy" I continued to read on about orality versus literacy and the differences between them. I began to read about narrative, and learned about its role in a literate society.  Narrative becomes more prevalent, because through writing it becomes the backbone of most all "verbal art forms" (137). The example given in the text is how even science students "write-up" their findings in a narrative way after conducting experiments (137). A story can be fragile, and the differences in telling it through writing versus orally are vast. The act of telling a story orally relies on kairos, it is totally depended on the right moment that the story is told in, and the audience present. After the story is told it vanishes again (138). The fact that we live in a literate society means that we depend on written text for authenticity, it holds permanence that we value much more than just 'hear-say'. Reading about narrative led me to the discussion of story - including characters, plot and storyline. I found this particularly interesting because of another class I am taking, where we are exploring the topic of storytelling as well. Storyline and plot are closely related to narrative - a narrative can many times tell story too. Telling a story in a literate culture requires much less memory to recite than that of an oral culture. Oral prompters and written notes completely revolutionize the way that the oral reciting of stories has been done. One thing I particularly learned about were characters - round ones and flat ones. Round characters have emotions and relatable characteristics that make them lifelike and 'full' to audiences, while flat characters don't really change much and offer little real interaction or a depth of characteristics. Round characters are what make stories good, and are much harder to create in an oral culture. According to Ong, the existence of written text itself fostered a feeling of internalization of human emotion. Written word let people write down their individual and internal thoughts, and allowed for "private interpretation". Ong explains that written word and the act of reading itself "engage the psyche in strenuous interiorized, individual thought" and in this way can more easily connect with 'round' characters in a story (150). I found this very interesting, the fact that writing and written text could allow literate audiences to analyze and interpret any body of text individually. Where in oral culture it would be very difficult to individually interpret ideas or stories because individuals would tell them different every time, or if someone else told the story their interpretation may be biased or different than the last. The fact that internal interpretation is so important in literate cultures is very surprising.

While reading Walter Ong's "Orality and Literacy" on the development of writing through speech I noticed many things. One thing I found particularly interesting is the division between spoken word, and written word or text. I hadn't thought much before about the distinction in language, other than their obvious differences. I know from personal experience in classrooms of other wide-eyed students that many hate to publicly speak - not only do their faces show it, but some even admit it while speaking. In the text Ong states that "the impression grew…oral art forms were essentially unskillful and not worth serious study" (10). This I found interesting in that oral delivery and/or speeches seem to be one of the most difficult things to get people to do enthusiastically, and successfully so it seems that it isn't actually so unskilled at all.
Since the change from oral presentation to written texts, many changes have happened as a result.
Another thing I learned and found interesting while eroding was the discovery of oral cultures. I have little previous knowledge of these types of societies and am intrigued by their apparently different means of communication which I can not quite experience ever. I am amazed by the ability their minds acquire for memory compared to a society like our today, where since things are written down and thus available without memory, our capacity for memory is less. One question I found myself asking was, "How long does it take for an oral society, with written text first introduced, to being to lose their mental memorization capacity?" How long after the ancient Greeks 'invented' language did it take for their dependence on strong memories to dissolve to what we have today? This leads to a realization I had that is that emerging technologies, including writings and other 'mediations', build society in one way while also leaving a trail of consequences or reactions as well. Because of writing, our linear society has a smaller memory capacity, but with the ability to write we have built the biggest database in the world - the internet, can fully oral cultures say the same?