Orality and Literacy as “Awareness”
Not a “movement” nor a set of theories (Russian Formalism, Structuralism, new Criticism) but an awareness. No “school” or canon. Not reductionism, but relationism.1
I love this quote, which is the complete text of the Introduction section of the Orality and Literacy outline. Ong believed that he was not a theorist but an interpreter. He was in awe of the world, of God’s creation, and believed that his role, as priest, was to learn about the universe God created and share that knowledge with others. He believed that knowledge existed in time because creation itself exists in time, always growing, always in a state of becoming, which is why I think he didn’t like the idea of being a theorist. For him, I think, a theory prescribes knowledge, theory tries to freeze knowledge in time, and the very notion that one could do such a thing went against his theology. Hence his desire to describe his work as “an awareness,” and why he believed his work was that of relationism rather than reductionism.
Via Notes from the Walter J. Ong Collection.
- From an early outline of Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. [↩]
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i like that too. i like the idea of seeing a theory vibe w/ an emergent disposition. i think that’s what Ong may be getting at and maybe what you like in this (?). oh, and the seeing often happens in writing. so that’s cool (esp if you’re a writing person).
Yes. It was his methodology. After the Orality and Literacy session I organized at MLA last year, I listened to two people debate Ong’s value, one a former student and the other a critic. The critic tried to argue that Ong’s work was deeply flawed because it was ideologically driven, which really meant that Ong’s work was flawed because it was theologically driven. This critic assumed that the two of us had never considered this point.
And Ong would agree with you on it being something seen. Writing, by exteriorizing knowledge, allows us to analyze it.
i was there at your panel, but i could only stay for a bit. i think i was getting sick because i had to prepare for my presentation. i remember thinking that 1. i wished i could stay, and 2. that they could somehow manage the ventilation system, which was objecting to the critique of Ong quite forcefully