The Race from Literacy

Ben Oliver
DTC 375: Language, Texts &Technology
Dr. Farman
February 9, 2009
Word Count: 876

The Race from Literacy

Our culture is racing toward an ever more oral ever more visual world. What evidence do we have of this evolution? How can we appear to be so attached to textile communication and make the claim that we are evolving to a more oral and visual world?

The evidence is all around us-

Symbols are appearing more and more often in our lives. At times it is as though I am going to be sucked into a hybrid world of reality and ‘toons’ like in the 1988 cartoon fantasy film Roger Rabbit.

I recently ‘upgraded’ to the Microsoft 2007 version of Office. There were some tabs but under each were an array of symbols and some text. I recognized most of the symbols and the ones I did not I was able to figure out fairly easily. The hardest part was that they were not in exactly the same place I was accustomed to. It was a good thing the program had the question mark “symbol” to help me.

I started to think about this new and improved layout and how it was different from the older version. The old one had tabs and under each tab it had words and maybe some special shortcut consisting of a couple of letters. It was still soft and friendly but not quit as soft as the 2007 cartoon version.

I went back even further and remembered the original layouts where the ‘windows’ looked as if they were stamped out of old bulkheads. They were industrial and cold and except for a few colors they were all words with a few icons that opened the windows.

Before the windows Graphical User Interface (GUI) there were all kinds of operating systems for different applications. They were cold, flat, colorless for the most part, and not inviting.

If we turn around and look forward we can see that the textile/literary world has refused to stay put. The message has evolved forward from a literary culture to one consisting more of orality.

The trail to the past gets further and further away from these icons and visual representations. As we approach Johannes Gutenberg who is credited for inventing the printing press at around 1450, it has only been about 500 years. The early prints were more letter than picture. Over time they started to incorporate pictures much like the way the computer culture has evolved to a degree.

In both the printing press and the computer the first uses were the most basic. The inventions were treated more like tools than toys. As the equipment became more accessible it gave people a chance to grow on their own in their own free way. Each time they grew they pulled images into the system.

Are we Textile?-

It would seem that a textile world would be reserved for mechanical operations, record keeping, logic, etc. and could never be replaced by symbols however Alexander Marshacks statement “man was making images and keeping symbolic records more than 25000 years before the invention of true writing “ (5) would seem to indicate otherwise.

Lewis Mumford writes “Finally, and not least, I have chosen printing because it shows, in the course of its own development, how art and techniques may be brought together, and how necessary it is, even for technical development, to have the person that presides over the process refresh himself constantly at those sources of life from which the symbol, in its purest form, comes forth” (91). Mumford’s statement seems to reinforce the idea that no matter what technology is tangled up in our communication process our communication can be traced back to symbols.

Imagine meeting another individual. The two of you speak entirely different languages. Your first efforts to communicate would probably be to point at objects or make motions with your arms. If the object you are referencing is not there then you would be forced to use simple drawings or symbols. You do not even have to be a very good artist. As the world continues to shrink and we interact with different cultures it becomes more and more important to communicate with symbols understood by all.

It is admittedly hard to imagine a world entirely without text but just when you think you can’t separate the two it happens. I drove a car the other day and the only word on the console was ‘PRNDL’. Even without any text I had no trouble figuring out how to defrost the rear window or any of the other operations.

Although we may seem at times to be swinging back and forth between orality and literacy it has to be admitted that to truly understand something, to know it completely, you have to see it in the eye of your mind and when you finally see it it is not text.

Works Cited

Marshack , Alexander. “The Art and Symbols of Ice Age Man.” Communications in History: Technology, Culture, Society. Ed. David Crowley and Paul Heyer. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2007. 5.
Mumford, Lewis. “The Invention of Printing.” Communications in History: Technology,
Culture, Society. Ed. David Crowley and Paul Heyer. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2007. 91-92.