The Faux Shaux

Walter Ong loves to cite himself (talk about shameless self promotion). The first four chapters of Orality and Literacy anthropological account on the transition from oratory culture to that of chirographic or written culture. He distinguishes chirographic culture from use of pictograms or any other symbol based system. Essentially, his meaning of writing is concerned with the first alphabet in ancient Sumeria. Yes kitties, cogito ergo sumo.

In distinguishing the two cultures he addresses the contradiction that is “oral literature,” referring to storytelling. Literature, meaning writing, as per “litera” meaning “letter of the alphabet” is certainly a case of a literate culture describing another culture in terms of what it is not. A case of the landlocked describing the sea as the whale’s road.

The pre-literate or oral societies held the art of rhetoric in great importance. Not only was it a faux pas to recite a speech from a text, but the speaker was to reinterpret or ammend his performance to the reaction of his audience. This is certainly an insight as to how technology has completely swapped values from an outward, performance based society to one so tolerant of the isolated intellectual. It is profound that literacy has made public speaking uncomfortable. We having cultivated this separate identity based on the praise of the scholarly, subsequently enforcing a solipsistic ideal.

I don’t disparage literacy, as Ong explains, without writing, I would struggle to contemplate abstractions from my own reality, and more importantly, you, the reader, would not receive my message unless you were in my company.

Ong redefines adages as “not only used to simply store knowledge but to engage others in verbal and intellectual combat: utterance of one proverb or riddle challenges hearers to top it with a more apposite or a contradictory one.” He then aptly labels said conduct as “flyting,” where he draws parallels to the colloquial exchange we refer to as “disses.” “Nah, yo’ momma so po’ she can’t afford her no cheap laughs.”

The author goes on to define writing as a technology. This corroborates with his point that children are immersed in the more natural, oral culture, giving the example of a child correcting his version of The Three Little Pigs. His incidental (or intentional) comparison to fairy tales illuminates the pre-literates’ use of the hero. Ong states the use of extraordinary characters such as a brave Hercules or a cunning Odysseus were to keep the stories remembered, therefor retold and subsequently preserved through generations. He also notes numerology to aid in an audience’s memory, a cyclops instead of a two-eyed monster, or Cerebus instead of a single-headed dog. Fairy-tales are employing both of these tactics to instill morality into our pre-literate children (think of the gruesome punishment of wrong-doers in all of the Grimms’ tales).

Ong goes on to discuss the invention of the alphabet, and how it was only invented once. He attributes Hebrew’s consonant-based alphabet as its primary pitfall and contrasts Hebrew to the “vocalic” Greek alphabet, having vowels as separate letters. He neglects to differentiate the agendas of the Hebrews and that of the Greeks. The Hebrews are preserving what was given to them by their God, whereas the Greeks, a more secular, granted superstitious civilization, were cultivating an empire. The easiest way to coerce neighboring lands to join forces is to install your culture, which is only possible by first installing your language. It seems clear to me that it was a case of different agendas.