» The World Turns Oral
Famously, Socrates said that written language would erode memory. Thankfully, Plato wrote this down or else I wouldn’t have read it. Socrates also said that writing or prepared speeches would produce weaker understanding than a back-and-forth dialog.
Ideas that really matter are those that a lot of people hear about. Before mass media, the best way to do this was to package an idea in entertainment, like a ballad, or disseminate it through a network of people, like a church. Writing didn’t really become the dominant mode of expressing ideas until the printing press and the Enlightenment (probably related, those two events).
Ever since then, your best bet on changing the world was to write. Obviously there are counterexamples – my impression is that Hitler’s speeches in the Bürgerbräukeller produced more power than Mein Kampf – but I think that’s the general trend. Radio and then television were supposed to kill the written star, but I think they just carved off niches.
My perspective, as a university student followed by a white-collar worker, is that writing is still the #1 medium of power. I’ve put more effort into my writing than any other form of communication.
But I get the sense, from YouTube to Obama to TED Talks to deliberative democracy to the slam poetry reading I went to last week, that our society is taking an oral turn. I’m a little skeptical that it’s happening exactly now, maybe it’s just now that I’m noticing it, or that it’s happening now in the circles that I frequent? Anyway, that’s my impression and it concerns me.
You’ve missed an opportunity to state that the world has a growing oral fixation.
Don
7 Jun 10 at 7:33 am
Ahhh! Titles are hard to write.
Jared
7 Jun 10 at 9:03 am
@Don: That’s actually what I thought the article was going to be about
Our society is also highly visual, moreso than older cultures (mostly because of the opportunity provided by, and prevalence of, television and film in terms of total media diet). That’s something that I’m trying to focus on more.
Jack
7 Jun 10 at 11:01 am
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I’m among the camp that would say that we are firmly in the oral tradition.
I haven’t read a thing written from Ronald Reagan, and I gather that during his campaign it was less of his literature than his oratory that was propelled him to the presidency.
Also, it is frequently posited that Barack Obama’s speech at the DNC launched him from relative obscurity into the rarefied territory of political stardom – overnight.
Yet, despite that claim of mine, I am cognizant of the fact that even the best speech has been prepared and edited with utmost care. Clearly, working on your writing bears tremendous fruit. Nevertheless, if it’s fame, notoriety, or impact that you seek – the oral tradition lays waste to the written, for better or worse. Just ask Sarah Palin.
Lincoln
17 Sep 10 at 1:31 pm
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