I read an interesting article in the New Yorker concerning the history and future of reading for pleasure. Ong and his theory of secondary orality are discussed in the article, but the work of Maryanne Wolf caught my eye (or my mind?). Here is an excerpt of\u00a0 a section which\u00a0made me think of this week’s readings\u00a0and Ong’s theory that literate minds would not think as they do were it not for the technology of writing:<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cThe act of reading is not natural,\u201d Maryanne Wolf writes in \u201cProust and the Squid\u201d (Harper; $25.95), an account of the history and biology of reading. Humans started reading far too recently for any of our genes to code for it specifically. We can do it only because the brain\u2019s plasticity enables the repurposing of circuitry that originally evolved for other tasks<\/span>\u2014distinguishing at a glance a garter snake from a haricot vert, say.” (Crain, 2007,\u00b68)<\/p>\n If this is true, what are the long-term effects of such repurposing? Will we lose the ability to recognize garter snakes?\u00a0 \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n I am of the opinion that the brain did not “rewire” to adapt to reading, but instead grew (created new connections, new synapses) from literacy. I suppose this could be what Wolf considers “repurposing”, and I admit I have not read her book. However, I don’t think our brain is rerouted resources from one area to another. I think our brains slowly formed new and effective pathways of thought.\u00a0 What do you think?<\/p>\n (There is a nice discussion\u00a0citing Ong and secondary orality in the article too!) Erin<\/p>\n