Theuth vs Thamus – Text as medicine or poison?
As per legend and as retold by Socrates in Phaedrus (2008), the “father of letters” was the old Egyptian god, Theuth. Theuth presented his invention as a gift to King Thamus, with the promise that it would “make the Egyptians wiser and give them better memories” (Plato, 2008, 77). Thamus was less than enthused, and felt that it would indeed yield an opposite effect. Plato himself denied the benefits of the written word (Ong, 1982). He denounced it as a “mechanical, inhuman way of processing knowledge” (Ong, 1982, 25). Thamus predicted that Theuth’s invention would be the cause of “forgetfulness in the learners’ souls” and that people would become “hearers of many things and will have learned nothing” (Plato, 2008, 77).
There is some truth to the suspicions that Socrates expresses (Plato, 2008): writing cannot defend or clarify itself to its reader, it cannot select its audience to ensure the message is well-received; and it cannot be certain its message is not manipulated or misinterpreted. As such, it has no power to protect or help itself. Ong (1982) goes further to suggest that reading and writing discourages “community” and “unity” among a group of learners – an attribute that an oral communication would foster among its audience. He posits that although speech is the foundation for writing, we have had to “revise our understanding of human identity” (Ong, 1982, 1) and to acquire characteristics that are not innately available to us as human beings.
As in the audio recording from Module 1, when emerging technologies are implemented, they have the potential to transform societies – but both gains and acceptable losses are to be realized (O’Donnell & Engell, 1999). O’Donnell states (1999) “One generations’ frontiers become the civilizations for the next.” Now that we are immersed in a civilization/culture of writing, print and media, what (if anything) have we learned?
Probably the most significant gains of writing versus oral communications is the ability to go beyond rote memorization to critical thinking and analysis. The ability to process knowledge at a higher level enables us to invent, create and originate thought that is distinct and potentially more innovative than that of our predecessors (Ong, 1982). Although stated earlier as a disadvantage, impersonalizing the knowledge from the knower allows for abstractions and speculations that are unique to a literate culture. In an oral tradition, knowledge can never accumulate. With the advent of text, knowledge can be recorded, revisited and built or improved upon.
Written text does relieve us from the necessity to memorize, an inevitability in an oral society. Backlooping, or revisiting previously read text in order to clarify or restore previous understandings, is always available to the reader (Ong, 1982), but not to those receiving an oral presentation. Spoken word cannot be recalled on a whim, so oral speakers often engage in patterns (mnemonics), parallel structures, redundancy and repetitiveness to ensure that their message is recalled. Writers need not focus their attention on such details and can delve into deeper thought with each sentence, unencumbered by concerns that their meaning will not be remembered.
Although our “memory”, that which is concerned to recall of information, may be weaker than the memory of someone preserving an oral tradition, our cognitive abilities have been amplified with the written word, and consequently, with the emergence of modern technologies. Our curiosities are peaked by having information ubiquitously available, and we use the internet as an external memory of sorts. Although we might not store all the information we “google”, we do store where we might find that information again (Sparrow, Liu & Wegner, 2011). Further, if we perceive that the information will not be retrievable in the future, we make the effort to remember it. This suggests that we are becoming more efficient at managing our limited memory stores and making use of external storage capabilities. We are adapting to our new lifeworld and aspiring to maximize our cognitive potential.
Rote learning still has a place in education today. Multiplication tables, verb conjugation, phonics, formulae in math/science, and spelling are examples of where rote learning strategies are employed. Some knowledge gained through rote memorization is important for participation in society. Who is the Prime Minister? What is the capital of Saskatchewan? These tidbits of information are important and should not be overlooked by the educational system. Being taught how to rote memorize early establishes the neural pathways that allow you to remember what you deem important throughout your life.
So, Socrates eventually relinquishes and supports writing as simply a tool for “reminding us what we know” and nothing more. Socrates himself never wrote a word. The irony is that text and writing has done much more than that, and has reshaped and enhanced our thought processes and aptitudes. Although we may have somewhat compromised our cognitive ability for memory and recall, this is an acceptable loss when compared to the gain of higher level thinking and the accumulation and scaffolding of knowledge. To summarize, the medicine is considerably more potent than the poison.
References
O’Donnell, J. & Engell, J. (1999). From Papyrus to Cyberspace. Cambridge Forum.
Ong, Walter. (1982.) Orality and literacy: The technologizing of the word. London: Methuen.
Plato as translated by Jowett, B. (2008) Phaedrus. The Project Gutenberg EBook of Phaedrus, by Plato. Retrieved from: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1636/1636-h/1636-h.htm.
Sparrow B., Liu, J., & Wegner, D. M. (2011). Google effects on memory: Cognitive consequences of having information at our fingertips. Science, 333[6043], 776-778. Retrieved from: http://twileshare.com/uploads/Science-2011-Sparrow-776-8.pdf.
Hi Janet,
I think a very interesting discussion has been given life by your post: what to keep in your memory and what to keep within the larger ‘online’ memory. I believe the debate lies in the idea that some elements are essential while other less so. Who decides this? Is it subject to change? If so, why and when? Your point about rote learning is very valid: we keep certain pieces of information available close by such as times table, geographic info being two examples, while other types of data are not given the same priority. I am seeing a trend that information is something to be known on its own, but rather the methods of rapidly searching for information are reinforced. This already started in a small way with the introduction of calculators in classrooms which led to a relaxation of the previous discipline surrounding the rote learning of multiplication tables. It is conceivable that a time will emerge where all information is accessible rather than known and skills will lie in the area of knowledge retrieval and organization.
Just my thoughts for now.
Maxim
Thanks, Maxim.
I agree – rote learning has its place, as long as it isn’t the main focus in the classroom. Certainly, memorizing certain foundational facts can be the basis on which to build higher level thinking skills. I think it’s also important to note that not all rote learning has to be excruciatingly boring – there are other techniques far more interesting to learners that will help them keep the foundational knowledge at their fingertips.
Yes, there has been a “movement” and trend towards teaching how to access and assess validity of information rather than expecting it to be memorized.
Hi Janet, Thank you for your very interesting post. In it you said “In an oral tradition, knowledge can never accumulate. With the advent of text, knowledge can be recorded, revisited and built or improved upon”.
I actually wanted to take a moment to disagree (or maybe give another perspective) to this particular point. Although it may not accumulate in terms of production (ie. Printable, published copies), knowledge in Oral cultures definitely accumulates and in fact becomes more and more layered through the ages as the knowledge is revisited, passed on and refined if you like.
As you know indigenous oral cultures have extremely complex systems of communication and knowledge preservation that have been around for thousands and thousands of years. Critical thinking and analysis is even more acute in these cultures, because everyone has to rely on the information in order to survive within their given society. However, the critical thinking is not in the academic manner that print based cultures perceive.
A wayfarer has to critically analyze the animal footprints they see in the jungle and draw upon a repository of information in their memory bank from all the stories told in order to understand- say for example- that the animal is unwell and therefore not to be pursued for hunting purposes.
My intention is not to be pedantic or augmentative, but rather to point out that I think neither is more valuable than the other.
Here are my sources
Sources:
O’Donnell, J. & Engell, J. (1999). From Papyrus to Cyberspace. Cambridge Forum.
Ong, Walter. (1982.) Orality and literacy: The technologizing of the word. London: Methuen.
Hi Rave:
I actually was getting that vibe from Ong…but I see your point.
I wonder if it might have been better to say “slower to accumulate” since oral cultures don’t have the ability to record and share their knowledge on the same scale that a culture that writes would be able to. There is also that degree of uncertainty as to whether the hearer remembered, accurately, and in its entirety, the oral presentation of the original knowledge to be able to build upon it. Perhaps this is also taken out of context — without knowing the topic under discussion (farming techniques, myths/fables, etc.) there would be different scenarios in which knowledge would be easily refined and others that were just accepted as truths without analysis. Ong does refer to analysis as a “high risk” procedure for oral cultures.
Thanks for your perspective. It’s pretty hard to get one’s head around life without text!
Thank you for your post, Janet! It certainly helped me coalesce some ideas I had floating around so far. In particular I want to touch or two points you have made about memory and orality and their relationship with writing/technology.
Ong observes that (at least in the west) until only a few generations ago “academic practice demanded students in class “recite”…statements (formulas—oral heritage) that they had memorized.” (56) This rote memory would be based either instructions in class or textbooks. As has been observed already, rote learning has seen decreased emphasis in the classroom, in accordance with Ong’s arguments, as the influence of texts—and technology—has increased. “The written word lets us outsource our knowledge,” we heard on the Cambridge Forum (O’Donnell and Engell), so that we don’t have to clutter our brains. (I have to wonder, in that light, if Plato grudgingly wrote down Socrates’ anti-writing dialogue so that he did not “clutter” his mind.) The internet, for now, has become the pinnacle of outsourced knowledge, and we seem to be adapting our abilities to it. I agree that in the classroom, learning where to find the information and how to evaluate it is increasingly important. So many times (teaching adults) I have said “I don’t expect you to memorize it, I hope to give you the tools to find it again when you need it.”
That said, as O’Donnell and Engell further observe, “technology does not take the place of thinking.” Over-reliance on technology can be a downfall. For example, on teaching conveyancing, which contains a good amount of basic math, the students who were completely reliant on calculators had a lot of trouble analyzing their final results and seeing if they “looked correct.” Those that were able to look over the calculations mentally (or manually on paper) could easily pick out when a result didn’t make sense given the input at the beginning of the formula. I am overgeneralizing a bit, and certainly problem-solving skills are also involved, but I saw similar results over quite a few classes. I wonder where reliance on the internet will take us.
On orality, I only want to observe that Ong in Chapter 3 to establish an almost “us versus them” dynamic between literate and oral cultures. He describes oral literature in seemingly negative terms such as agonistic, redundant, and homeostatic. Ong often seems to suggest the conclusion that the ability to analyze must belong to the literate alone; oral cultures are too busy memorizing. On the other hand, Ong himself observes “oral cultures can produce amazingly complex and intelligent and beautiful organizations of thought and experience” (57) merely acquired and transmitted in a different fashion. as Rave suggests, one is not better than the other, only different.
O’Donnell, J. & Engell, J. From Papyrus to Cyberspace. Cambridge Forum.1999. Web
Ong, Walter. Orality and literacy: The technologizing of the word. London: Methuen. 1982. Web.
First off, kudos to you for such a well composed argument and linking it back to your metaphor in the end.
I agree with what you mention in how written text lets us off the hook, in part, from the necessity to memorize. Like Ong (1982) illuminates, written texts allow for re-visitation in order to clarify understanding. However, couldn’t one argue the same about the oral world as it is now filmed at fingertip? What speech in recent years has not been recorded at the hands of video? With this modern luxury, we can review great Ted Talks via YouTube and catch succinct snippets in other forms of media that is dispersed far quicker and with greater reach than ever before. We can back-loop speech almost just as easy as text now.
I will not disagree that storytelling, succinctness, and repetition is indeed an art and needs to remain as such. Repetition is a powerful tool. At a recent Learning 2.015 Conference I attended in Manila, repetition and storytelling were common threads in the best of the keynote speeches. The effect of being succinct at times, yet telling a story in others puts a most emotional element to any great oral prose, one that causes the listener to make connections and, ideally, remember in detail. Orality allows for much richer tone and expression than that of text; emotional investment for the listener of both time and place.
This is why it is so important, for us as educators, to still cherish the potent qualities of oral speech and not mislead our pupils into, what Edward Tufte (2003) would call, “Powerpoint is Evil”. We must be cognizant to be models of good speech, not be over-reliant on slide ware and convey our lessons with emotion. At the very least, exposing our learners as to what makes a powerful vs. mediocre speech – even if we’re not so great ourselves.
Finally, I fully resonate with your notions on places for rote learning today. Working for an IB school, I do love inquiry and trandisciplinary learning, however, doing an investigation into the multiplication tables would not be any more beneficial to my learners than inquiring about why keys are where they are on the keyboard. Some information is meant to be stored locally (i.e. our brains) whilst other information, is better stored externally. Larger written texts lend themselves to knowing where to retrieve the information for later recall.
References
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Ong, W.J. (1982). Orality and Literacy: The technologizing of the word. London: Methuen.
Tufte, E. (2003). Powerpoint is evil. Retrieved from http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/ppt2.html