“Tell me the truth,” everyone demands. Not many will demand the written truth.
Keith Thor Carlson, in Orality about Literacy: The ‘Black and White’ of Salish History, argues that the oral stories of the Salish are just as authentic as the written stories of the Europeans. It is simply another way of knowing.
This type of knowing is just as concerned with authenticity and truth as the European or Western ways of knowing. Carlson explains that in both societies, “it is understood that poorly conveyed or inaccurate historical narratives pose dangers, not only to the reputation of the speaker but to the listening (or reading) audience” (58).
So why is it that orality is often situated outside of authenticity in Western culture? The Salish people are well aware of the dangers of misrepresenting a story. Salish stories bring into the world the spirits of historical actors spoken of and “if a story was imperfectly recalled it was wrong for [Salish historians] to ‘guess’ meaning, to pad, improvise, paraphrase or omit. It was better not to tell” (qtd. in Carlson 59).
This feeling of inauthenticity comes back to what J. Edward Chamberlin describes as a “kind of thinking” (19) – not a kind of a fact or a kind of truth.
It is important to realize that every day, we tell the truth. When confronted, we must tell before we write and even when we write, I believe it is a type of post-orality. When writing, we make drafts and we make changes. We move words around and add in sentences. We come back to it days later and realize something was wrong and we change it.
It is not concrete or as the saying goes, “written in stone” when something is written. Changes can be made before “publishing” and even then, after things are published, interpretations continue beyond that. The reader comes away from it and can add on to this written content with the experiences they have gathered and lived through.
One of the assumptions I take from levelling literacy over orality is the idea that literacy lasts. But as Carlson retells the stories of Mrs Peter and Henry Robinson, paper can be burned and lost. Writing on stone can be broken or misplaced. It can erode and become illegible.
I believe orality, like Carlson says, is yet another way of knowing. As I sit in lectures, I don’t often question my professor’s spoken information. I’ve learned from them and oral Salish stories operate in a similar fashion. The act of speaking is the very same act of writing something down. Once spoken, Salish stories become truths and go out into the world in this way through time and space.
It is interesting to apply this notion of writing the truth to technologies today. Texting is an integral part of our society today, especially among peers, friends, and family. It straddles the border between oral and written language. Although it is written, it is written as if spoken at times. And most of the time, fingers go so fast, nobody takes a second look to what is being typed and interesting things happen.
So yet again, texting is just another way of knowing. Just like writing down stories or telling out loud stories. They are just as authentic. And can equally be untruthful. Not everything written is truth, nor is everything said. But I believe, one should not be considered more advanced or more authentic than the other.
References
Carlson, Keith Thor. “Orality and Literacy: The ‘Black and White’ of Salish History.”Orality & Literacy: Reflectins Across Disciplines. 43-72. Print.
King, Thomas. “Godzilla vs. Post-Colonial.” Unhomely States: Theorizing English-Canadian Postcolonialism. Peterbough, ON: Broadview, 2004. 183- 190. Web. 04 april 2013.