Here, a couple days late, is the rough draft of my term paper. Again, it takes a deeper look at the false dichotomy between the oral and literate traditions. Please let me know what you think!! I'm always down for some criticism.
An Extended Look At the False Dichotomy Between the Oral Tradition and the Literate Tradition
In Walter J. Ong's book, Orality and Literacy, the topics of the oral tradition and that of the literate tradition are differentiated and explored. Though each is explained in great detail, a problem exists that the text does not address. According to Leonard Shlain, in his book The Alphabet Versus The Goddess, literacy which is frequently seen as cultural progress, comes at a price. The stated dichotomy is based on an assumption that severely limits the understanding of the interactivity between orality and literacy. This also leads to limited explanations of the literate tradition's seemingly inherent patriarchal structure.
Ong expresses characteristics of oral thought as if they are in opposition to literate, or typographically based thought. For instance, while explaining orally based thought, he states that the oral tradition is “Aggregative rather than analytic” (Ong 38). Oral thought takes in information as a whole, whereas literate thought analyses and deconstructs. These two are clearly in opposition from Ong's standpoint. This is a valid observation, however Shlain uses this comparison to dig deeper into the origins of these two types of thinking.
The main problem with Ong's approach is that he opposes orally based thought to typographically based thought. In addition this also opposes the oral tradition to the literate tradition. This is a false dichotomy, and is seen as such when compared to Shlain's approach. Using Ong's term, the aggregative view of the thought process would not break it down into orally based and typographically based sections. This is because they are complements. They coexist in a medium which is impossible to destroy by any means lesser than death. If one is breathing and therefore thinking, they are allowing characteristics of each type of thought process to thrive.
As Shlain points out, “First writing, and then its more sophisticated refinement, the alphabet, tolled the death knell of feminine values” (Shlain 39). So the literate tradition caused the fall of feminine qualities in the thought process? Ong does not disagree on this point. Although it is only mentioned briefly, he believes that the rise of patriarchal values comes from the privilege of males to study certain languages which females were generally barred from learning (111). Shlain writes however, that the reason for literacy to bring about patriarchal constraints is that, “writing subliminally fosters a patriarchal outlook” (1). So the effects of writing are subliminal and not as obvious as a social construction already steeped in patriarchal tradition such as privilege.
The Alphabet Versus The Goddess starts out by defining the feminine outlook with the qualities of a holistic, simultaneous, synthetic, and concrete viewpoint. Subsequently, the characteristics of the masculine outlook are linear, sequential, reductionist, and abstract thinking. Shlain continues to explain his theory by talking about the evolution of the human brain to accommodate the invention of new technologies or other circumstances.
The right side of the brain, which developed long before the left side of the brain, handles such emotions as the state of being, and it understands things in a holistic manner. The left side of the brain developed with the evolutionary process to handle the different faculties needed to understand the growing complexity of language, and eventually written text. Shlain correctly points out that, “The left brain's primary functions are opposite and complementary to the right's” (21). It is already apparent that the characteristics of the functions of each side of the brain correlate to the characteristics of oral and literate based thought.
The next part of Shlain's argument is that the two sides of the brain function differently in concordance with the characteristics of each gender. This occurred through the evolutionary process and the early forms of gender roles. Women stayed around the home, cared for the young and gathered food, they used their emotional faculties heavily and therefore connected strongly with the right brain. Men hunted and needed to act without emotion, and think in linear forms planning the best ways to take down an animal. All of these actions relied heavily on the developing left brain which excelled in the methods of speech and eventually writing (21).
The process of reading is steeped in analysis. Shlain writes, “reducing the components of speech into their separate parts – is essential to understanding speech, especially if the content of the message concerns objective facts” (21). Taking a look back at Ong's characteristic of orality vs. literacy – orality is aggregative and literacy is analytic. Though speech uses primarily the left side of the brain, oral based thought relates in many ways to the feminine, or right brain characteristics. However, to deduce that oral and literate thought come from completely separate characteristics is a faulty assumption according to Shlain, and this mistake introduces the beautifully synergistic relationship between the characteristics of oral based thought and of typographically based thought.
Shlain says that, “the hemispheres work closely in concert with one another” (18). It is as if the two sides of the brain are dancers, hand in hand, arm in arm, moving across the floor in a complementary style. It is not that one partner is dominant over the other, but each has moments where they express their own qualities more so than their partner. If this is true with the left and right sides of the brain, it is also true for oral and literate thought. Each relates somewhat to the characteristics expressed by the individual sides of the brain, and their relationship is complex and complementary.
Continuing with the dancers, if the style of dancing relies on strength and speed, then one of the partners is probably going to express themselves the most. According to Shlain, this is precisely what happened four thousand years ago, after agriculture had already been invented, one of the dancers expressed their qualities nonstop, stifling the other. According to Shlain the reason for this was the invention of the alphabet. (39)
Because men had evolved to used their left brains more while hunting, they were stronger in the fields of linear thought and abstractions. When the alphabet made its entrance, the male was naturally equipped to comprehend writing efficiently. The female who had previously been seen as a power of fertility, now fell as the new system of literacy thrived, along with the patriarchal outlook. Ong's argument is at an immediate disadvantage because it does not look at the true origins of the characteristics that define oral and typographically based thought. Without this depth, the ways in which gender played a role in developing the patriarchal system are lost and subject to such guess work as rights of privilege. (Shlain 22)
Just as the brain works in a synergistic manner, so to does orally and typographically based thought. They cannot effectively be separated because in our current state, we cannot have one without the other. The true oral tradition was not in opposition to the coming literate tradition; the oral tradition was defined by the same characteristics as the literate tradition was going to be. In each tradition, one partner expressed their own qualities more than the other, one side of the brain worked more efficiently than the other. But now they are complements, and separating them only detracts from the whole they make together. They are not working against each other, but indeed differently for different purposes … like a dance between partners, “each of the worlds, pursuing its separate ends, resolves problems by contact with the other” (Kane 175).
Works Cited
Kane, Sean. Wisdom of the Mythtellers. Orchard Park NY: Broadview Press, 1998.
Ong, Walter J. Orality and Literacy. New York: Routledge, 1982.
Shlain, Leonard. The Alphabet Versus The Goddess. New York: Penguin Putnam, 1998.
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