Rulers and Writing

First, I am pleased that the scribes used animal skins, as it certainly would annoy their equivalent of PETA people.
Not only does technology determine text, but more importantly, the political climate determines to some extent the technology. As well, such climate determines not only what text is written and how it is written, but also whether there is text after all.
Martin chooses a world that to the dwellers in that place and time is literally falling apart. I originally thought that the barbarians were ignorant and totally ignored the benefits of writing, that the Romans completely lost the knowledge, and that the Monks had to deal with chance discoveries to keep some relic of civilization. I did not realize that Odoacer and the other Germanic leaders saw at the very least that the writing was important to their newly conquered, and that in many instances, the very practice of writing, and not just the parchments and stone, was preserved.
The technology determines the space one can use on medium used, be it parchment or clay. It determines the shape of the symbols used, and forces the writer to consider the difficulty in making the symbols. Outside the text materials, other parts of technology interfere. If there is no way to regulate year-round temperatures, one may not write until the outside temperature increases sufficiently, while with our ability to regulate temperature year-round by controlling the heat in buildings, one can write any day at any time.
One must also consider the logistics necessary to produce the text, including the availability of the materials, gathering the materials to produce it, the costs of doing so, and the needs of the scribes themselves.
Still, the political climate is paramount. In the disintegrating world of the late Roman Empire, the new rulers allowed much to be preserved, especially legal formulas, yet Roman decay meant that the meaning of what was written could be lost over the years, and often did happen. Technology determines the text, abut cannot preserve the meaning thereof. In any case, as we can tell from more recent examples such as the Soviet Union, rulers can impose meaning on the test if they so wish.
Not that rulers always had their way. Martin points at that Cassiodorus could not condemn pagan writers and alienate someone if he wanted to keep his new group of literate monks (122). As more decay occurred, writing was reduced to monasteries, and thus writing from a pagan, Roman point of view transformed into Christian overtones (122-123). The magnitude of the transformation has its vague analogy in a science fiction story in which, because of computers, people lost the ability to perform mathematical calculations in their heads until, during a time of crisis, a technician discovers the lost art, but it now is viewed in the context of a secret weapon for the war effort!
From the Clanchy article, I learned that rulers are primary employers of writers, and can permit the preservation of religious manuscripts, as well as create tax and salary records, but the matter would be for utilitarian purposes, or more directly, what the writers can influence the rulers to cover. I believe I am fighting the notion here that writers write for merely aesthetic reasons, while reality dictates that even then, writers need to earn bread, be they Roman scribes, Irish monks, or Chaucers in their bureaucratic work.

The Heresy of Imagery

At the risk of committing heresy, I state that the readings talk about a return to what Father

Ong would consider a transitional state between orality and literacy. He would see the

transition as heading in only one direction, toward literacy and forever away from orality. Yet,

reliance on imagery to create messages appears to return, taking a heretical step back.

Both the Honeywill and Lipson articles deal with visual literacy, and both compare the ancient

script with modern technology. Honeywill spent the entire piece pitting the Mayan pictographs

with modern icons, while Lipson wrote about the Egyptian hieroglyphics and touched upon the

imagery that modern movies use to convey meaning. The difference between the computer

icons and the Mayan was that the icons do not constitute an actual language, but only symbols

for specific functions. The Mayans could use their glyphs in various ways, which in the case of

Honeywill’s article, usually pertained to the Mayan leader, and could deploy the images to

remove as much ambiguity as possible. The icons, however, were not always non-ambiguous, as

one had to deal with the context of the image, and even the direction the viewer is used to read

from. There was the example in Honeywill of South African miners reading a series of images

right-to-left, opposite what the image-makers wished, and the result was that the miners

deposited rocks on a rail rack. The computer icons also depend on context, and that how the

user discerns the symbols may be quire different from how another does. Still, when there is

widespread understanding, using icons saves a great deal of time, and dare I say it—text. There

is little need for words when the icon itself describes the task desired.

The Egyptian hieroglyphics were like movies in that they seemed to tell a story, which, in the

case of Lipson article, dealt with the mighty pharaohs, their lives an their relation to the gods, by

using devices such a showing hierarchy in that the kings were larger than more mortals, and

sexual dominance in that even the female pharaohs were depicted as male. Lipson is not

entirely satisfied with the modern movies saying they do not make best use of their power to

manipulate imagery, though he is now encouraged by multimedia efforts to add text, and even

audio within the text, to bring about meaning. That we can do this at all should be appreciated,

but we have been jaded through familiarity. The point is that the new technology allows the

combination of text (literacy), imagery and sound (orality) to help the user understand the

content.

The issue, as I see it, is this: We are not returning to the visual. We never left. The Mayans

use imagery in they glyphs, as the Egyptians in theirs, and sometimes including text, and we see

the artwork form the monk’s manuscripts. We see it in flags and traffic signs, even uniforms.

Contrary to the wishes of Father Ong, not only will orality no wither away, but as well the lust of

the eye for images will not disappear either, but, if the authors are to be believed, will only be

satisfied for years to come.

Are paintings text and technology?

Evolution implies that humanity evolved from low intelligence to intelligent beings. The authors of the sites insist that Paleolithic humans were by no means stupid. If they were, then stronger and more vicious creatures would have vanquished them. To survive, they would have to have used their reason. The paintings convey the reason and reflective traits of these ancestors.
What do the paintings mean? Are they text or technology? I argue that they are both.
The paintings are clearly part of technology. The cavemen needed to find something with which to paint the wall (Chauyet). Of course, the substance would have to stay on the wall, dry quickly and not drip. From the Chauyet site, they even developed such innovations as shading and perspective. On the Lascaux site, in the main Gallery, there is evidence that the painters used geometric shapes, and employed methods to create 3-dimensional images. It reminds me of the Renaissance artists using geometry and every method they could to produce 3-dimensional masterpieces.
The paintings are clearly text. The cavemen used the technology to convey meaning. In all three sites there are paintings of much game, some of the animals now extinct, such as large wild oxen and wooly mammoths, but either the painter was expressing the meaning of prosperity or wishful thinking. Key is the use of methods to bring out the illusion of movement. In the Painted Gallery (Lascaux), one sees “Chinese” horses expressing movement and grace. A large black cow seems to be falling, or as I see it, leaping over an obstacle. Also, the painters have brought out conflict, as shown by two opposing ibexes.
The paintings show hunting. Not all ventures were successful, as shown in the Scene of the Dead Man (Lascaux), wherein the bison bests, or rather, gores, the would-be hunter. The anger of the bison is brought out in the painting.
The paintings can express a religious theme, though for Dr. Kamat, it is mostly of gloom and desperate searches for protection in the paintings at the Indian cave. Still the idea of religion indicates some level of abstraction, that there is a power above them.
A possibility of another religious theme is indicated by the painting of a unicorn (Lascaux). Having seen so many unicorns in New Age propaganda, I was surprised to see it on a cave painting. It is unlikely that such beasts existed, but if not, whence came the concept? It would be more evidence of the Paleolithic ability to make abstractions.
Another way of this ancient form of text expressing meaning is though a possible sense of humor. In the Lascaux cave, there is a scene in which a bull, an herbivore, has long eaten a bear, an omnivore. Such an event does not occur by nature, and the people in that age were very practical, as sheer survival would force them to be, thus, if it is humor, then it is another example of abstract thinking.
Text, ten, does not have to be writing. These paintings speak many words across the millennia.

Remarks on readings for 9/6

Mark Walker
English 701
Reflections on the readings for 9/6

English 701 Reflections on the 9/6 readings:

“Writing is a technology that restructures thought” by Walter Ong, from his work Orality and Literacy and “On beyond Ong: the bases of a revised theory of orality and literacy” by Janet Coleman’s Public reading and the Reading Public.

The two articles intersect in the discussion of what Ong sees as the primacy of literacy. Indeed, Father Ong starts by insisting that “Literacy is imperious” (18). I take this to mean that literacy will tolerate no rival. Ong’s statement is consistent with Coleman’s assertion that Ong uses as a theory a Darwinian model (Coleman 16) for a “Great Divide” theory (16). Basically there is, according to the theorists, an unbridgeable gap between Orality and Literacy (5) As I understand the theory, first, oral traditions emerged, and then a transition in which the oral tradition is disappearing in favor of the emerging literacy, and finally, at the top of the evolutionary progress, is literacy alone (19), or as Coleman interprets it, “orality—the less efficient solution,--will drop away, just as nature selects the more favorable biological adaptation (18). Coleman attacks the argument by showing that in literate cultures there are still strong examples of orality (19-20). According to her, the Great Divide theorists counter by saying that this is still transition time, and that eventually orality will disappear (21). Ong appears to defend this view by writing “Once wise sayings are written down, oral culture is weakening, though its demise may take many hundreds of years” (Ong 31)
Coleman argues that these traditions had been in place for at least a thousand years, with no sign of demise.
I would lean on the side of Coleman, but I would add what appears to be missing from both of the great researchers, that a desire in humanity for an oral tradition, is possibly why it persists. There have been attempts to revive oral tradition, be it the griots in Africa, or the bards reciting verses in Anglo-Saxon, or more locally, the fisherman describing the massive fish which escaped his grasp.
I have another remark concerning something Coleman had said. Middle Ages are not completely Barbaric, although the warfare would compare favorably with the violence of street gangs, but there was time of great innovations. The Cistercian monks developed gears. Someone invented a plough vastly superior to the mediocre Roman one; there was the invention of monophonic music, the concept of hotels in monasteries, the making of god beer and wine in monasteries, and the development of universities from monasteries

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