The Written Word
the wisest of storytellers, through imagery and the richness of their languages and through the multileveled structure of their stories, provide a beacon for those open to a new understanding of humanity’s evolutionary process and who might hope to see themselves as part of that transformation.
Sally Mallam • The Science of Storytelling
Claudia added
The origins of literature were, of course, oral. And although literature is grounded in the idea of speech (we can’t read without hearing words in our auditory imagination), the fact is that the invention of the written sign kicked off a process of evolution. The storyteller was naturally constrained by the attention of his listeners; thus the tale
... See moreSven Birkerts • The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age
For most of our human history, storytelling was oral. Myths were spoken or sung by diverse storytellers who could select and modulate their narrative to best suit a given audience, emphasizing some aspects and ignoring others.
The Oral Tale
Claudia added
Writing allowed for the durable storage of knowledge independently of human beings. Not only can written knowledge outlive a particular individual, it can outlive a whole culture.
L. M. Sacasas • The Analog City and the Digital City
As the world around us becomes increasingly complex, chaotic, and confounding, writing remains one of the most reliable tools we have to root ourselves into more truthful, nourishing lives. Carefully crafted words help us unearth and resolve the self-sabotaging stories stewing in our subconscious. They act as a beacon, beckoning us towards who we’r
... See moresari added
In our world of ingrained literacy, thinking and writing seem scarcely related activities. We can imagine the latter depending on the former, but surely not the other way around: everyone thinks, whether or not they write. But Havelock was right. The written word—the persistent word—was a prerequisite for conscious thought as we understand it. It w
... See moreJames Gleick • The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood
Though our collective forgetting is enormous, it is mostly unremarkable to those who study the transmission of culture. What puzzles me, and others who study transmission, is why so much unwritten knowledge has survived. Despite the brittleness of cultural practices, skills proliferate with and without records, chaining generation to generation, an... See more