New Writing Technology Paper – Post Peer Reviewed
New Tech or Old School?
Technology is not something that I automatically associate with writing. Of course, people have used technology in order to write – computers, word processors, typewriters – but pen and paper are considered technology? Don’t they just exist? After this assignment, the answer is a definitive, “No!” By trying to find a new source of ink and a new way to define paper, it became evident that as technology becomes more common, the more difficult it is to clear the mind and come up with new ways to do old things. In fact, the more often something is used for its sole purpose, the more we reject the idea that it can be used for something else. Not everything is meant to be a uni-tasker; By taking cooked pasta or glue and creating words to share with others, we not only create new technology, but we change what writing means to us as well. It is not only a way to communicate or share, but as Walter Ong said, writing becomes a “manufactured product” (3).
Because of this mindset that I had, I had a very difficult time at the beginning of the project choosing what to use to write with. It seemed that everything I first thought of was prohibited from the assignment. Even using a pencil in a non-traditional sense would not be following the rules. And so, I spent a day at a park just waiting for my daughter, who is five and constantly writes, to pick something up to start drawing or writing with. Like most kids, she picked up a stick and wrote in the dirt. Well, I was pretty sure that was a method that had not only been done before, but could also be viewed as “taking the easy way,” neither of which screams, “New invention!” But as I thought (and obsessed) more about it, I realized that my definition of “invent” was too narrow. I didn’t need to come up with something brand-new and never seen before. No, I just had to take something already created and use it in a way that it was not intended for. Well, then! That is a lot easier to handle! And so I made dinner and thought some more and at the end of the meal, as I was cleaning my kitchen, there was my inspiration: bacon grease.
Now, bacon grease is its own technology. Long ago, there was no vegetable shortening, but there were fried foods, and often times it was bacon grease that it got fried in. If you were making biscuits, you used lard which is pretty much bacon grease. So this seemingly unusable byproduct of pork ended up being a food staple in certain times and cultures. As I looked at my electric skillet full of congealed bacon grease, I thought it resembled a dirty car with the words, “WASH ME” written by someone’s finger. I took a leftover piece of fettucine and wrote, “Wash me!” in the grease and left the dishes piled up for my husband.
It didn’t occur to me until the next day when I logged into class that I had the first part of the assignment basically done. Sadly, my husband did as the message asked and washed my skillet. Attempts to recreate my bacon grease whiteboard failed. The grease either didn’t get solid enough or it was not opaque enough. Fortunately, I was being my crafty Girl Scout self later in the week and found some scrap pieces of interfacing and created my new technology out of glue and glitter. Not the most technologically advanced, to be sure – my bacon grease was pretty awesome – but it was getting time to turn in my picture and hey, it is what worked right then.
I went through a couple of versions of the glue and glitter, wondering if it was cheating or if I was using items that were intuitively an extension of paper or paint. I referenced others’ projects to see if I was on the right track, at least so far as my classmates. But it was a six-year-old girl in my Girl Scout troop who said, “I wish my mommy left me glitter notes” that made me think this could be a good idea. Here was a young girl who is just at the point in her education where she is getting that literacy that Walter Ong says our society is so obsessed with and if she wanted a glitter note, then maybe it could work for this project (1).
I wonder, though, what Plato would have thought of this project in general and my struggle with it in particular? Would it have supported his belief that writing deteriorates our memory and causes retardation in our thinking (Plato)? Or would he have applauded the effort to rethink our writing and turn it into something that he might not consider quite as false as your typical writing? It is hard to find the falseness in cookie dough and cocoa paste, but if anyone could do it, Plato just might be the guy.
Walter Ong noted in his article that “the process of putting spoken language into writing is governed by consciously contrived, articulated procedures” (23). That was absolutely the case in, and the main point of, this assignment. By forcing us to think of new ways to get a written message across to the class and our instructor without using conventional means took several contrived, articulated procedures. We had to take our spoken words and find a way to convey them using an alphabet, in a new way.
Personally, I think that simplifying the invention of writing into those terms does writing a great disservice. Writing can do all of the bad things that Socrates’ character spoke of in Plato’s “Phaedrus,” but at the same time, writing adds more to our lives than what he supposes writing takes away. It allows us to expand our thoughts in our time and to adjust those thoughts with time and the gaining of new knowledge. While it is true you cannot argue with the written word or ask the computer to push back on opinions it has, the writer of those thoughts and words can argue the validity and meaning, the inflection, the purpose, and the reasons, albeit not in real time.
On the other hand, there is something to be said for the art of debate. To be able to discuss subjects on which you have had to do research, memorize facts and figures, and to do it effectively are things that do not come as naturally to the younger generations as they once did to previous ones. The advent and rapid expansion of information technology, specifically on the World Wide Web, from the era of World War II to present day has reduced the immediate need for such memorization and thus crippled in some respects this art of debate and oration. However, despite the ease and convenience of such modern technologies as email and texting, communication is still delivered faster via the spoken word.
But it seems as though our spoken word is still dependent upon modern technology. No one in the public eye – politicians, I’m looking at you – just stand up and give a speech without Teleprompters anymore. Filibustering in its true form is no longer heard of. There is nuance in tone and emotional complexity that is lost in speech making when it relies solely on the written word. Would “We have nothing to fear but fear itself” sound the same if FDR Tweeted it? Would President Regan still be considered “The Great Communicator” if all he had was a Blackberry? The answer is “probably not”. These two men had great oration skills and used them wisely, but while the written text of these speeches can still give rise to the exact meaning and emotional weight of the spoken words, without recalling how they sounded, a lot of the implied meaning is lost.
Written language, at its heart, has two purposes: to communicate information when the sender of the information is physically unable to present it to the recipient and to preserve information for posterity. Through the invention of new technologies such as the Xerox machine, Dictaphone, jump drives, and Zip files, we are able to do both. But Socrates’ character might have had it right when he said, “But nobler far is the serious pursuit of the dialectician” (Plato). As people in this world, at this time, we can, and should, understand that both the written and the spoken word have places in our lives, and we should strive to incorporate and do well with both.
And so, we live in interesting times that ask deep questions that it appears have been argued since ancient times. Do we embrace the new technology given to us and disengage from the ways of our forefathers and mothers? Or do we find a way to make them copacetic? To truly incorporate both aspects of eloquent elocution and communicative composition?
I haven’t the slightest. So I’m going to go get my bacon grease out of the freezer.
Ong, Walter. “Writing is a Technology that Restructures Thought.” Literacy: A Critical
Sourcebook. Eds. Ellen Cushman, Eugene R. Kintgen, Barry M. Kroll, and Mike
Rose. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2001. 19-31.
“From Plato’s Phaedrus.” Web Page.
<http://www.stevendkrause.com/academic/eng328/phaedrus.html> September 22, 2010.
