The Impact of Literacy

This is a photograph from my window during a recent
trip to Seattle with my family. There are 10 publications vying for attention.

We live in the information age. It is an age of shifting, destabilized mass media, political apathy, and high unemployment in the United States. We have entered into a period where the number of sources of information has grown dramatically while the ability to validate and verify has become obscured. CNN and Fox broadcast headlines 24/7 and yet there seems to be little new knowledge acquired. The average political ad contains just seven seconds of actual political speech and yet we have elected through a political majority to support a “war on terror” for the past seven years.

Media is everywhere, data is plentiful, and yet many would argue that American Culture is on a great decline. High Definition subscription television, portable mpeg players, internet enhanced cell phones, MySpace, EBay, and YouTube have enabled Western Consumerism to reach an apex that has left us staring down a deep pit of potential economic and cultural bankruptcy. Can the bling-bling continue?

In order to sort out the current climate of the world it is helpful to look back further than the last century and review the origins of language and literacy and its impact on economics and culture.

In Walter Ong’s article, Orality, Literacy, and Modern Media we go to the foundations of language and culture and look at the origins of literacy. He starts out by pointing out the distinction between Sound and Sight and how these senses are emphasized when communicating in either an oral or literate culture, and more importantly, how these senses affect the structure of our thinking. Ong asks us to mentally step away from the world of written language and consider the spoken word alone. Spoken word contains a power that text does not. Sound puts us at the center of the world while sight isolates. Sound waves go through us and are absorbed in a way that prompts us to respond internally in an outward manner. We have all found us tapping a finger or toe involuntarily. Sound based communication is dependent upon rhythm.

Oral cultures have very strong cultural structures and are dependent upon mnemonic memory systems. Complex thoughts have to follow strict rules or formulas because there is no record system available. Lessons are passed down through formulas such as nursery rhymes or proverbs that the community all shares an instant recall of. Whether it’s a saying like “red sky at night, sailors delight, red sky in the morning, sailor take warning!” or “ I before E except after C”.

Spoken word is an assertion of power. Even a simple greeting among strangers is a face threatening act that demands a response to maintain harmony. Sound seeks harmony and we are all enjoined to help achieve it. A Baptist preacher can recite chapter and verse with a fervor, and the audience joins in with shouts of “Amen!” Religious beliefs are shaped by an oral culture that obliges faith over fact to maintain the harmony of those gathered. One could argue that oral cultures provide the individual with a clear set of tools necessary to be successful. Knowledge is passed down completely, a farmers almanac of instant recall, and the rules are easy to remember and obey.

When you combine Walter Ong’s theories with Jack Goody and Ian Watts arguments about the Consequences of Literacy you find yourself experiencing a clearer picture of the contemporary socio-political landscape. Goody and Watts describe how the alphabet and the development of literacy led to the rise of Western Culture and its fragmentation. At its roots, reading is a solitary activity and is sight dependent. Literacy enables the development of abstract reasoning, and ultimately leads to the development of advanced technology that displaces physical workers and creates a social stratification due to gradations of literacy. Literacy also promotes individuality which breaks up homogeneous culture.

Secondary Orality through technology devices such as television, telephones, and the internet have had an interesting phenomena of maintaining some Oral cultural traits of harmony and shared meaning while promoting the literary traits of individuality and the vast expanse of authorship of every variety. The internet has normalized virtually every fetish that in a oral culture would be deemed deviant. While subcultures can flourish and find shared meaning, infinite fragmentation is also occurring as there are few bonds to hold individuals accountable to social conformity.

As literacy exist, the number of “truths” propagated through authorship expands. Unlike the spoken word event that may pass quickly, the shelf life of a text-based message is far longer and its redundancy effect serves to establish new social norms absent any formal logic as Aristotle might expect. What is seen or heard repetitively is likely to become the culture “truism” for the time being.

I found these two issues sitting like this in the breakfast room at my hotel in Seattle. The redundancy of the two issues makes for a new whole image of Obama. Maybe next month I'll have an opportunity to fill in the other half of McCain's face.

Contemporary culture appears to be a paradox of oral and literate cultures. While scientist and engineers work within the text based abstract reasoning, our political leaders continue to operate within a oral culture that lacks enough redundant coverage of the debates to spawn democratic participation of any significance. The weight of the spoken word of enabled a president to garner support for a war to suppress weapons of mass destruction. The orations in the House and Senate pass energy plans that are often at odds with scientific reasoning and the secondary orality of television media consumption leaves the masses ambivalent to it all. While consumption of media has expanded in light of fewer physical demands in our lifestyle, our overall literacy has declined which has led us to accept our fate. Social stratification based upon literacy has widened and we are consuming media in a manner that is imploding traditional outlets such as Newspapers in favor of YouTube and reality television episodes.

It would seem that we were preprogrammed to evolve into literate and illiterate consumers. Denise Schmandt-Besserat presents evidence that the Token system was the necessary precursor to writing. Tokens evolved from concrete counting devices to abstract number and category systems for keeping records. She points out that the very nature of record keeping is an assertion of dominance. In a communal or bartering system, tokens would not be necessary because all exchanges and communication would be done equitably and in person. Tokens form the basis of accounting and hence the need for administration and complex governance, and the need for literacy that is every bit as relevant in this age of information.
Literacy, like all sensory, is based upon time. Literacy moves culture from the now to the past and the future. In American Consumerism, it is the future where we spend all of our idle thought. Advertisements form a desire for future gratification that could not exist in an oral culture. Advertisers have refined the design and delivery of messages to be as efficient as a cigarette in delivering its narcissistic doses of envy.

Early advertisements were mostly text based. Gradually the image replaced the text and now we are compelled to dole out $200 for a pair of shoes based upon an image and the slogan “Just Do It.” Again I point to political campaigns that are image based rather than argument based. As we head to November, what are the factors that will decide the election?

While one could surmise that all of this is the work of clandestine capitalist, Andre Leroi-Gourhan reminds us that our mystical attraction to image is as ancient as we are. Graphism and human reflection predates literacy. The earliest representations are not phonetic language but are mythologies that connect us beyond words. Leroi-Gourhan explores the mysticism of the image and explains how alphabetic language is devoid of the emotional connections and multi-dimensionality that is contained within more graphical languages like Chinese that blend sound signs with graphics that portray a deeper cultural meaning that remains consistent even if the word sounds change.

When analyzing the image precursors to written language we see the foundations for photography’s linguistic qualities and its deep impact on culture. We can also see the origins for consumer responses to brand identities and modernist abstract logos such as the Nike swoosh. Abstract and emotional visual content, when added to words form strong cultural beliefs. The visual of John F. Kennedy, combined with the oral words of his speeches create a collective impression of the early sixties that may or may not reflect the facts or data of what was occurring in the world, but they form a strong sensory dream like memory of events long past. Crude graphics and text are easily seen as propaganda, but sophisticated branding and advertising such as the “margeting” style of situational advertising or product placement are less likely to be detected.

We are generally happy to buy Toby’s Kieth’s and Lee Greenwoods patriotic popular songs without recognizing our allegiance to its political consequences.

In short, the writings of Ong, Goody and Watt, Leroi-Gourhan, and Schmandt-Besserat help to clarify the present through a thorough review of the ancient. In the oral tradition it can all be summarized in the expression, “the more things change, the more they remain the same!” What Anthropologist and Sociologist have historically looked at in isolation are found to coexist in a zen like manner. We are literate and illiterate. We are primitive and scientific. We are new and ancient. Simultaneously. BF Skinner was right and so were the poets.

While I remain cynical about contemporary American Culture to a great degree, I do have new-found enthusiasm for developing literacy in New Media because of its potential to blend text, image, and oral traditions in a manner that is balanced and harmonious, not through the individual expression, but through the discursive formations of cultural values and meaning. If that should fall short, I’ll take up organic farming…