Category: ETEC 540

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ETEC 540

Text is…. magic

Sir Arthur Clarke, co-author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, was a science fiction and otherwise “speculative fiction” author, inventor and “futurist”. He coined the three laws of prediction as follows:

  1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
  2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
  3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

The last two laws in particular represent a commentary on technology from my perspective. The notion of the impossible becoming possible; the notion of having to reach beyond what is currently afforded in order to truly see what we are capable of achieving; the notion that present innovations would have been considered magical in the past. Technology is anything that furthers our current capabilities into the future, by keeping the lessons of the present and the foundations from the past in mind.

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ETEC 540

Text is…. meaningful

“I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again.”

Oscar Wilde

Much like the intentions within this quote, text can be meaningful in brevity while subtle nuances can make significant adjustments. The beauty of text is that is can be manipulated in so many ways and infinite possibilities are afforded to any who choose to play with letters and words. Text is the vehicle by which authors assign meaning; the artifact in which we immortalize thoughts and facts; the unspoken representation by which we speak. Text is our tangible fingerprint crafted in written language.

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ETEC 540

Mark Antony’s Funeral Oration

Ong contends that one characteristic of a primary oral culture is that expression tends to be agonistically toned.

He says that that opposite of agonistic name-calling in oral cultures is praise and he cites Mark Antony’s funeral oration to demonstrate the awareness of this. I find it interesting that the lines directly following “I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him” are as follows:

“The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;”

Shakespeare, living in a residual oral culture has his character Mark Antony, living in a primary oral culture, draw attention to polarities in his oration. Ong says that “praise goes with the highly polarized, agonistic, oral world of good and evil, virtue and vice, villains and heroes” and there certainly is an awareness of this in Julius Caesar. Earlier in Chapter 3, Ong references the fact that oral cultures need to use certain strategies as part of their rehearsal and repetition of information (I believe he cites the “brave soldier” and “beautiful princess”). Polar opposites would just be another way of committing information to memory as it sends a strong message. Notably, Antony refers to Brutus as an “honourable man” multiple times in his short oration and refers to Caesar as ambitious multiple times. I’m not sure which would be more desirable to “go down in history” as but these descriptive words are repeated so many times that in literate cultures, it would be deemed too repetitive and outside of the modern stylings of the English language.

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ETEC 540

Homer’s Catalogue of Ships – the significance of lists

The list is certainly utilized is all genres of written language. As a writing culture, we use lists to serve utilitarian purposes (such as checklists or grocery lists) or to convey facts or other criterion based information (ie. list of US presidents or list of entrance requirements for university). I think that the use of headings and categories also applies to “seemingly simplistic writing forms” that are significant. The ability of writing cultures to make “black and white” of information, facts, ideas etc. is something that I suppose would be the evolution of Ong’s assertion that orality requires mnemonics or other recall formulas. In the case of a writing culture, lists, headings and categories are not for the purpose of recall but rather for the purpose of making sense of multiple items.

In terms of what significant oral forms we might have lost… I thought tonight, as I listened to my dad rattle on and on about his childhood and that of my grandparents, that our society has lost some of the ability to “tell a good story”. The written form, especially in academic settings, is just that, academic in style, content and purpose. Much of what we read (ie. in the newspaper, in work related publications etc.) is critical or informative or analytical but without the context of a story. Of course, we live in a world where fiction is prevalent but it is just that, fiction. Much of the oral tradition of storytelling is lost and no amount of biographies or non-fiction stories can totally replicate that. A&E, Biography etc. have taken storytelling to a multimodal level on television but to actually listen to a detailed, meaningful story based on experience or generational retelling… I don’t think it is as prevalent or valued as it once was. I believe Ong mentioned something about looking at how societies educate their young and the fact is that we do not use oral storytelling as part of education, rather, we rely on the voice of text. Perhaps we need to make a LIST of oral forms lost or marginalized!

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ETEC 540

The nature of writing

I remember my school days of “rough copy in pencil, good copy in pen” which was not very conducive to revision, editing and evolution of ideas. I feel that technological tools enhance our ability to write because of how easy it is to manipulate words and build upon ideas. I remember writing English papers in the senior years of high school and every time I went through a draft, I had to start all over again to create the “lastest version”. The affordances of word processing leave our writing foundations intact and allow us to continuously build instead of starting from the ground up each time. Computers definitely don’t take away from our intellectual facilities…. that is, until the day they can tap into our brain and pull the thoughts out automatically!

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ETEC 540

From Papyrus to Cyberspace

There are some great insights in this forum about O’Donnell’s lecture. Two things struck me while I was listening to “From Papyrus to Cyberspace”. The first is simply the format of the lecture. So far in the MET, most of the pieces I have been asked to reflect upon have been readings (either online or tangible) or even video clips. I found that listening to O’Donnell’s lecture without being able to watch a supporting video or read along with his speech was very difficult for me. I never really thought about how much I rely on visual learning.

O’Donnell speaks about the gains and losses that come with innovations, citing automobiles as an example. When new technologies are introduced the focus is always on what we will gain from their use. Some of the losses that come with technology are more obvious than others (ie. given the prevalence of computer use, the importance of handwriting becomes marginalized). I think that one of the biggest losses has to do with the importance of people, spaces and social interactions. The library is mentioned as an example of a space that is being affected by technology, as we are beginning to explore the library “on screens” rather than by interacting with a librarian or reading through a catalogue. I often wonder how much more dependent we will become on technology and how many jobs and spaces will be transformed or otherwise eliminated in order to reap the gains of new technology.

I certainly have struggled to predict how much more technology will alter our social landscape. I have always thought that no matter how innovative the technology, there simply cannot be a replacement for things like a face to face conversation, writing with pen and paper, enjoying the outdoors etc. However, if I were to adopt a more radical point of view maybe I would say that society will eventually change its values to adopt the role of technology in all aspects of life. Perhaps, internet dating will be seen as the way to meet someone and the thought of just randomly meeting someone without being afforded a full profile will be seen as archaic?! I do agree that human interaction has been marginalized because of technology although it’s not always in a bad way. Maybe it’s anti-social to say, but I am often happy to be able to do things (ie. banking, registering for courses, checking out at the grocery store etc.) without having to go through a person at every step of the way. I am not one for extremes so I am hopeful that there will continue to be a balance between the virtual and the physical!

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