It's useful to remember that Socrates was contrasting the existing Oral culture vs the emerging Literate Culture (Plato) , and the _enormous_ social differences between them. i.e not just rejecting new technology because it's new.
Unlike Oral cultures where a point of view can be questioned and held accountable, a written version changes these expectations since it can only be conveyed one-way, i.e a trust-me mentality.
Secondly, humans having evolved in an oral world are used to much greater exertions and development of their memory (eg: recalling and narrating complex oral epics) which writing (and later computers) greatly weaken.
Ong makes a similar argument in Orality and Literacy (1982) <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7182447-most-persons-are-surprised-and-many-distressed-to-learn-that" rel="nofollow">https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7182447-most-persons-are-su...
> Most persons are surprised, and many distressed, to learn that essentially the same objections commonly urged today against computers were urged by Plato in the Phaedrus (274–7) and in the Seventh Letter against writing. Writing, Plato has Socrates say in the Phaedrus, is inhuman, pretending to establish outside the mind what in reality can be only in the mind. It is a thing, a manufactured product. The same of course is said of computers. Secondly, Plato's Socrates urges, writing destroys memory. Those who use writing will become forgetful, relying on an external resource for what they lack in internal resources. Writing weakens the mind.
Wasn't Plato writing this stuff down? Why would he argue against what he was literally doing at that moment?
I think I'm also not clear on who "Socrates" is supposed to be here and his relation to Plato. The article attributes the argument to the actual person, while Ong seems to consider him not only as one of Plato's characters, but as some sort of self-insert for Plato, to ascribe the argument to Plato himself.
Socrates comes from a period, the tail end of that period, where all learning was oral. Writing was "new". He observed, which is provable and true, that learning from a written word perspective is a weaker form of learning than from an oral perspective. From the simple fact that when information is delivered orally, questions can be asked, it is a 2-way communication. Not so with writing. With writing, the student must follow their reading with additional oral use and trial uses of the information, or it is lost completely. While that same information initially gained in understanding via oral lessons can often be put to use immediately, the oral instructional path is more complete, it allows questions and answers during the learning process. While a written lesson requires human interactions to supplement that learning for it to hold.
The origin of rhetoric is oral persuasion, not the transfer of objective information. Oral conversations are noisy AF, easy to dominate, allow speakers to lie with "I didn't say that", and to use persuasive rhetorical tricks to confuse and persuade instead of enlightening.
We've all been in meetings where people talk at each other, or everyone says their part with no connection to the rest, and previous points are forgotten almost immediately even if they're valid, true, relevant, and important.
Likewise lectures - good luck teaching anything scientific without allowing notes.
Writing gives the recipient time to stop, ponder, understand, and - on a good day - disagree and criticise.
It doesn't prevent questions at all. It encourages them, and gives them time to mature and deepen. You may not be able to ask the original writer - especially if they're dead - but you will always be able to find comments and opinions from others.
If you put all of these together you get an argument from status, not from effectiveness.
Being a teacher/philosopher was a career, and writing endangered that.
Superficial in-the-moment wit and memory were always better for entertainment than expanding human knowledge.
Well, spoken exchanges are not expected to be neutral. That's part of the nuance of communications. Yes, oral conversations are noisy, easy to dominate and speakers can lie, which is also part of the lessons within understanding how to communicate well. Lessons that somehow magically also teaches a person to plan their communications, to employ both critical analysis and secondary considerations in reflection of their audience. And to do that in real time while conversing.
Comparing the lax and informal communications of our modern experiences, it is no wonder that people cannot imagine the environment a community a quality communications creates.
Our collective communications experiences are argument from status, not from effectiveness, but that is not to say effective communications and the completely other environment it creates does not exist. Socrates speaks of that environment, not our modern failure to communicate above 5-grade levels.
ppsreejith · · focus · HN ↗
Unlike Oral cultures where a point of view can be questioned and held accountable, a written version changes these expectations since it can only be conveyed one-way, i.e a trust-me mentality.
Secondly, humans having evolved in an oral world are used to much greater exertions and development of their memory (eg: recalling and narrating complex oral epics) which writing (and later computers) greatly weaken.
Ong makes a similar argument in Orality and Literacy (1982) <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7182447-most-persons-are-surprised-and-many-distressed-to-learn-that" rel="nofollow">https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7182447-most-persons-are-su...
WCSTombs · · focus · HN ↗
> Most persons are surprised, and many distressed, to learn that essentially the same objections commonly urged today against computers were urged by Plato in the Phaedrus (274–7) and in the Seventh Letter against writing. Writing, Plato has Socrates say in the Phaedrus, is inhuman, pretending to establish outside the mind what in reality can be only in the mind. It is a thing, a manufactured product. The same of course is said of computers. Secondly, Plato's Socrates urges, writing destroys memory. Those who use writing will become forgetful, relying on an external resource for what they lack in internal resources. Writing weakens the mind.
Wasn't Plato writing this stuff down? Why would he argue against what he was literally doing at that moment?
I think I'm also not clear on who "Socrates" is supposed to be here and his relation to Plato. The article attributes the argument to the actual person, while Ong seems to consider him not only as one of Plato's characters, but as some sort of self-insert for Plato, to ascribe the argument to Plato himself.
bsenftner · · focus · HN ↗
TheOtherHobbes · · focus · HN ↗
Spoken Q&A sessions are not neutral.
The origin of rhetoric is oral persuasion, not the transfer of objective information. Oral conversations are noisy AF, easy to dominate, allow speakers to lie with "I didn't say that", and to use persuasive rhetorical tricks to confuse and persuade instead of enlightening.
We've all been in meetings where people talk at each other, or everyone says their part with no connection to the rest, and previous points are forgotten almost immediately even if they're valid, true, relevant, and important.
Likewise lectures - good luck teaching anything scientific without allowing notes.
Writing gives the recipient time to stop, ponder, understand, and - on a good day - disagree and criticise.
It doesn't prevent questions at all. It encourages them, and gives them time to mature and deepen. You may not be able to ask the original writer - especially if they're dead - but you will always be able to find comments and opinions from others.
If you put all of these together you get an argument from status, not from effectiveness.
Being a teacher/philosopher was a career, and writing endangered that.
Superficial in-the-moment wit and memory were always better for entertainment than expanding human knowledge.
bsenftner · · focus · HN ↗
Comparing the lax and informal communications of our modern experiences, it is no wonder that people cannot imagine the environment a community a quality communications creates.
Our collective communications experiences are argument from status, not from effectiveness, but that is not to say effective communications and the completely other environment it creates does not exist. Socrates speaks of that environment, not our modern failure to communicate above 5-grade levels.