From Orality to Literacy

The change from an oral-based society to literacy, which began with the appearance of a writing system 6,000 years ago, restructured our consciousness. One of the most important effects Ong discusses is the way in which print distances the sender of communication from the receiver. Print does this by enabling the existence of discourse "which cannot be directly questioned or contested as oral speech can be because written discourse is detached from the writer" (78). In an oral society the audience can question the speaker requesting an explanation of a statement. However, a text is "unresponsive," if you ask for an explanation "you get nothing except for the same, often stupid, words which called for your question in the first place" (79). There is no way to directly refute a text. "The author cannot be reached in any text" (Ong 79).

Without writing, the literal mind would not and could not think as it does, not only when engaged in writing but normally even when it is composing its thoughts in oral form. More than any other single invention writing has transformed human consciousness.

Walter J. Ong