A theme that I continually returned to throughout the readings for module 3 was relationships and, more specifically, the impact that the development of printed texts has had on author-reader relationships.
Ong’s (1982) arguments regarding the transition to printed texts indicate large shifts in the relationships between the author and reader. Greater legibility of text through printing led to easier, faster but less collaborative reading. Reading manuscript texts “had tended to be a social activity, one person reading to others in a group” (Ong, 1982, p. 131). Printed text led to more silent reading, and the authorial voice needed to be different than what was previously necessary. Yet, just as reading was shifting towards becoming a more independent task, Ong argues that writing was simultaneously becoming less solitary. A manuscript could have been written by one person, with that person taking ownership over it and no need for scrutiny or revisions from others. Alternatively, printed text, for the first time in the writing process, now involved many people such as publishers and agents. Manuscript culture, as Ong (1982) describes, is producer-orientated. Contrastingly, print culture is consumer-orientated.
Bolter (2001) examines pre-digital technology and also discusses the distance, perhaps both metaphorically and physically, between the author and the reader. Examining late text print, he explains this distance as, “In the heyday of print, we came to regard the written text as an unchanging artifact, a monument to its author and its age” (Bolter, 2001, p. 11). The author became a prodigious symbol which the reader could visit or admire through reading but not have a relationship with. Bolter goes on to argue that the attitude in the late age of print shifted to be more impressed with the changeability of text and, consequently, reduced the distance between author and reader, as the reader could be an author themselves if they so desired. In the later age of print, the reader becomes less passive and can have an active role in the relationship between reader and author.
This shift within relationships makes me think about my own classroom. I see the value in using a variety of techniques for reading – silent, partner, guided, etc. If a teacher favors, for example, silent reading, are they encouraging isolation and promoting reading as a private task? Similarly, writing can often be an individual task in classrooms, but is this the best use of our classroom time? Ong writes, “Print was also a major factor in the development or the sense of personal privacy that marks modern society” (1982, p. 130). This leads me to wonder, what impact has print culture had on the feeling of loneliness?
An additional argument that came to mind during this module was the ownership over words that printed text established. In a primary oral culture, there may be a shared sense of ownership over a collective poem but there would seemingly be less envy over written works and the possibility of plagiarism. This ownership undoubtedly has an impact on our relationships with authors and readers. Were the feelings of loneliness and envy shifted and amplified through the era of printed texts?
Ong (1982) argues poignantly, “Unlike members of a primary oral culture, who are turned outward because they have had little occasion to turn inward, we are turned outward because we have turned inward” (p. 136). Are these relationships between the author and the reader cyclical?
Bolter, Jay David. (2001). Writing space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print [2nd edition]. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Ong, W. (1982.) Orality and literacy: The technologizing of the word. London: Methuen.
mackenzie moyer
July 1, 2018 — 11:38 am
“What impact has print culture had on the feeling of loneliness?”
“Were the feelings of loneliness and envy shifted and amplified through the era of printed texts?”
As an avid reader, I’m confronted and have thought about the pay-off of reading: being alone instead of being with family and friends. Reading and loved ones, besides work, are the two main ways I combat anomie/existential angst. They each…recharge different batteries, if that makes sense? Meaning, relation, accomplishment…all of them are tied together, they feed back into one another; each is increased to varying degrees by loved ones, reading, and work.
I didn’t connect it to the readings so thanks for connecting the dots for me.
Historically, the reaction of humans to isolation and being alone has been…less than ideal. When imprisoned by Westerners, I read how First Nations peoples would perish within the span of a day, severed from the connection to humans and the wider world. There’s also the history of aesthetes trekking out into deserts, jungles, and mountains. Isolated like this, these hermits would later return with their experiences of the otherworld: demons, hallucinations, gods. A lot of this happened right around the axial age, an age of massive social disruption and a change from old ways to new.
The individual of today’s industrialized, rich world, although aswarm with technology, can arguably become as isolated socially more readily than these axial age hermits; individuals typing away at keyboards at work, commuting with earbuds on subways, home to Netflix—minimal human interaction. I think perhaps this happens to us all, to varying degrees.
Somewhere on the spectrum, we use these technological tools but are also socially connected to a healthy level. I think we can feel this healthy level: we’re happy, we have meaning, we’re able to pursue what we’d like. The formula for this balance is highly contingent on the individual: what communities they’re part of, their family and friend networks, and other classic socio-economic considerations.
On balance, perhaps the literate structure of our world (still very much text-based, but increasingly accented by mobile and social technology), has shifted the balance of necessary socialness (you are born, see the world, and act completely embedded within an oral framework and way of being, with delineated roles and codified relationships between these roles) to the individualism of today, with its emphasis on optional levels of social embeddedness. In other words, we have more tools to be social, but need to proactively approach being not alone, while the technologies also enable us to easily be alone.
So, I think we find it easier to be alone as a literate people than an oral people would, that this can possibly lead to loneliness if we aren’t careful to proactively balance and seek out opportunities to be social (using a formula of interaction relevant to our own circumstances and predilections), and that this loneliness then leads to social ailments such as depression or anomie, among other negative impacts.
When you ask “Are these relationships between the author and the reader cyclical?” you hit something deep: the relationship between author and reader are themselves related to wider social relations and shifts, which all seem to be somehow cyclically (dialectically?) related.
In turn, these negative impacts of loneliness as a phenomenon seem to be leading to novel institutional and organized solutions, such as: the (re)discovery of mental health, the evolution of older institutions such as religion, shifting dialogues and participation in social movements—all of which are also informed by technologies like literacy and IT. Perhaps the relationship is helical (cyclical, but in a direction; heli- as in helicopter) or reflexive (A changes/creates B, which changes/creates A, etc.)
Often while reading history I’m struck by how much history rhymes with itself…there is a human pattern there that seems just beyond reach. Ironically, with each new book I read (I read a lot of history), that pattern is as elusive and tantalizing as ever.
Thank you for the post, Kathryn, it was eloquently written and engaging,
-Mackenzie
natallia kuzmich
July 5, 2018 — 9:10 pm
Thanks a lot for your post, Kathryn! I totally agree with Mackenzie, I really enjoyed it! 🙂
Mackenzie’s comment made me think about another aspect of reading: being an avid reader yourself and being a teacher, trying to encourage and incorporate all the teaching strategies into your classroom.
I think, as the majority of teachers are avid readers, they would make the assumption that reading is almost like ‘a sacred enjoyment’ (sorry for this word combination) versus the students might consider this as the most terrible torture.
Being a language teacher and mother, I was embarrassed by my daughter’s comment after reading ‘Macbeth’, ‘I thought it was a woman, but it was actually a man!’. Yes, now I can smile! I was really upset at the time! She hated reading, downloaded books and just listened to them… There was not a single ‘enjoyable’ part for her…
That ‘incident’ made me think about teaching students like my daughter, adding more challenges to it for me as a teacher because my students are newcomers to Canada and English is not their first language. What is reading for them? A pleasure? A torture? A part of the mandatory curriculum?
It is hard to say, it depends, of course. I just think that as a teacher you have to be more flexible and almost ‘more inventive’ in those ‘encouragement’ strategies. I can’t say I have become super successful, but still keep on trying!
Thanks,
Natallia