ENGL 3196/COMM 3000: Orality * Literacy * Computer Technology
“Those who use writing will become forgetful” (Ong 135). I can’t remember what I had for breakfast unless I write it down. I don’t remember my coffee order.
References:
Ong, Walter J. “Orality and Literacy” in The Book History Reader. eds. David Finkelstein, Alistair McCleery. Routledge, 2006
This week I decided to reflect on Italo Calvino’s “Cybernetics and Ghosts”. The reason why I chose this story was because there was a very specific part that kind of just blew my mind a bit. “Having laid down these procedures and entrusted a computer with the task of carrying out these operations, will we have a machine capable of replacing the poet and the author?”(pg. 12) Being someone who enjoys reading, I was very surprised to see that people are actually considering letting machines take over and wipe out the beauty and art that is creative writing or just writing in general. I don’t see how we could potentially live in a world without authors. There is no purpose or true meaning to a book without the author because the author, although may write a fictional story, can take their own experiences to create something that many people can relate to.
Citation:
Calvino, Italo. “Cybernetics and Ghosts,” from The Uses of Literature: Essays. Harcourt Brace, 2009.
For this weeks blog I decided to focus on A Cyborg Manifesto by Donna Haraway. Later on in the text Haraway introduces Richard Gordon’s concept of a “homework economy”. Here Gordon speaks about work being redefined as female and feminized because of a woman’s crucial role in the work place. The reading analyzes various means of employment and concludes that most jobs obtain feminine characteristics. What I found interesting is that these new systems reveal that women produce majority of the labor in the working class. When first reading about the “homework economy” I would think it’s purpose was to solely show women’s impactful & influence amongst the work force, but Haraway later points out that women are generally excluded from benefiting from increased modifications (specifically in the production of food) We go from readings about feminine influence to now women exclusion. I thought I had an understanding of this concept but then I came across these opposing views. I don’t fully know what to make of the “homework economy” and I’m curious of its impact on todays systems regarding the work force and women.
For this week readings I decided to write about Donna Haraway’s “A Cyborg Manifesto” which she talks about an ironic political myth and the blasphemy the goes along with it. She says it’s ironic because she speaks about the idea of a cyborg promoting it as a gap between human and machine. Throughout the article the cyborg represents as a metaphor. Haraway defines cyborg is a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creation of fiction. I found this to be interesting because there is a distinction between humans and technology. In this era where we use technology at its highest point and using it in our everyday life. For instance, you have computers and your cellphones that talk to you and do other things. Technology is starting be more lifelike.
For this week’s blog I chose to reflect on Italo Calvino’s Cybernetics and Ghosts. There was one part that caught my attention because it made me think about how this statement can be seen in everyday life. Italo Calvino states, “The immobile world that surrounded tribal man, strewn with signs of the fleeting correspondences between words and things, came to life in the voice of the storyteller, spun out into the flow of a spoken narrative within which each word acquired new values and transmitted them to the ideas and images they defined. ” (page 5) This statement stuck out to me because it made me think of what we do in society everyday like create slang where one word can have one hundred different meanings. Also one phrase here in New York can mean something totally different in another country. In Addition, this is interesting to me because there’s no formally written guide with these new meanings and values of these words that we create, but they’re passed on through verbal communication and different platforms such as television, radio, social media, etc. To me personally it shows that this world is more connected than some may believe or think and that we share interests in similar things that we may not even notice.
For this week readings i chose Donna Haraway’s “Cyborg Manifesto” which she talks about the bridges between humans and technology. One thing I found amazing about this article was that it was published in 1991 it talks about a “post-gender” and feministic world, which is discussed now in 2018. “When there was greater need for political unity to confront effectively the dominations of ‘race’, ‘gender’, ‘sexuality’, and ‘class’.” She talks about being against political identities, letting it be known that being female has nothing to do with natural binds women have.
For this week I decided to reflect and talk about Cybernetics and Ghosts. On page 4 of Cybernetics and Ghosts “The storyteller began to put forth words, not because he thought others might reply…” This whole paragraph really made me think deeper into the birth of words and communications. In the story, the storyteller just started to put words together to try to form sentences and this made me think about how other people started to communicate. What we learned were the first forms of communication was cave art. This makes me also really think about words and the significance of language as well. Towards the end of the page it talks about figures being a representation of what the storyteller wants to say. This tells me that although we have words and oral communication that we do use, figures/pictures and ultimately art is also very essential to us because it is another form of communication that people do understand and connect with. To think that it took one person to start just drawing on caves, to then words being created, to then different languages just shows the evolution of communication and shows how progressive we are.
For this week’s response I have chosen Walter Ong’s Orality and Literacy for my blog post. At the beginning of his work, Ong mentions that sound and time have a special relationship with each other. He explains this by saying “Sound exists only when it is going out of existence. It is not simply perishable but essentially evanescent, and it is sensed as evanescent. When I pronounce the word “permance,” by the time i get to the “-nence,” the “perma-” is gone, and has to be gone”(Ong, 65). The word “evanescent” means “soon passing out of sight, memory, or existence”. Therefore in the context that Ong is talking about, he is saying that with every sound we hear, it will eventually go away. Sounds are not always permanent and go out of our existence or memory. Ong also mentions that one can not stop and hold sound. He writes “If I stop the movement of sound, I have nothing- only silence, no sound at all. All sensation takes place in time, but no other sensory field totally resists a holding action, stabilization, in quite this way”(Ong, 65). Here Ong is saying that unlike the other human sensations, sound is the one we cannot put a hold on. We just have to let it come and go as freely as it can be. Overall, sound is important but it is only a privilege.
The writing that I chose for this blog was Orality and Literacy by Walter Ong. In his writing, Ong talks about life in a primary oral culture meaning a culture that only relies on speaking for communication. This means that things such as texting, email, or event writing letters do not exist. There is no knowledge of writing (Ong, 64). One part of Ong’s writing that really stood out to me was in the beginning where he says “a culture where no one has even “looked up” anything” (Ong, 64). For me this crazy to think about because when I need to learn something, the easiest way is to look it up on the Internet or in a textbook or through notes that I wrote down. This leads to second thing that stood out to me on page 66. Ong talks about being able to produce the same thoughts without being able to write them down. In an oral society, it is all based on memory and nothing more. He says that it is nearly impossible to have exactly the same thoughts without writing (Ong, 66). If someone were trying to solve a complicated math problem it would be impossible because you can’t write anything down. Also you wouldn’t even be able to see the problem because that would require writing. Overall I don’t think I would like to live in an oral culture. I definitely need to be able to write.
The article with which I decided to write my blog report on is “The Almanac of the Dead” by Leslie Marmon Silko. This excerpt resonated with me a definite substantial amount more than the other assigned readings because it seems more relatable in a way. To be honest, Book one of the novel already shows the darkness of a different world then we are accustomed to; almost creepy I can say. But it’s relatable because life isn’t all roses and daisies. Life is made up of ups and downs, lefts and rights, making it into a complete and utter roller coaster of experiences, with some definitely not being positive, upbeat experiences. In fact, they can be quite the opposite, such as sad, or fearful, or disturbing or whatever else. Silko herself sort of hints how the concepts in her book are so layered because their isn’t one story or one angle to tell. When she writes about the various different concepts and theories, stories, and dreams, and ideas, there is so much to unload. This excerpt resonated with me because life has plenty for us as humans to load and unload, the way we handle and communicate it all is the key.
