Walter Ong - Jesuit priest by day, academic truth seeker by night.

Walter Ong thought that writing is the most momentous of all human technological innovations. It isn't merely an appendage to speech, but rather restructures consciousness itself. He described writing as a technology that we have to force ourselves to learn, and it effects the transformation of human thought from the world of sound to the world of sight. Writing allows for the "interiorization of thought", and implies that the word is a thing, not an event.

Such a transition has implications for structuralism, deconstruction.

This is where I can't help but draw on my post modern homeboy, Adorno, and his scathing modernist raval George Orwell.

Orwell maintains that our slovenly modern language is the driving force behind our deteriorating culture. (LOL, brb, ttyl, OMG !!)He believes that a concise style, conducive to logic, reason and consistency, is the ideal avenue to truth. So Orwell kind of takes Ong's idea that writing restructures thought and takes it a step further and gets petty about style.

Howver, Orwell’s style poses too many restrictions to provide an adequate method of communication for particularly radical thoughts, thereby limiting self expression and actually contributing to the downfall of language and culture.

The contrast between Orwell’s intentions see themselves echoed in postmodern aims. Both Jacques Derrida and Theodore Adorno, postmodern thinkers, also had an agenda of political hope and change, but sought to achieve these goals by means of an elaborate writing style. Both Orwell and Adorno recognized a close relation between the corruption of language and the corruption of politics, but disagreed on the need for clear language as a vehicle for change.

The idea that writing restructures consciousness seems to be floating around all over the place, especially in my program Arts and Contemporary Studies.

Ong lamented this fact. He wasn't down with the feeling of finality writing possesses, and the closure it encouraged. (Pressing backspace is impossible, apparently.) But I see what he is getting at. Orality is so up in the air. For example if I ran into a friend on campus and they said "Kait lets do coffee Thursday" and I replied "Oh yeah sure 3 oclock?" I pretty much am free to do whatever I want on Thursday at 3 because there is no sure-fire way my friend can go back and cite this statement - nothing has been set in stone. If they approach me later about it I could just tell them they were going crazy,and I hadn't seen them for a week. But if this conversation goes down via text message, the plans are more finalized.

(I do this often, for fun. Just to test Ong's theory)