Goody vs. Socrates
According to Socrates, writing hurts human beings by making us lazy. In The Phaedrus, Socrates seems to think that people in society will not be able to speak as well as a result of writing. He thinks that these two things can't coexist in the same society. Socrates also sees writing as a way to cover up the truth. It's easier to be dishonest in text than it is to be dishonest to somebody's face.
Goody has a very different opinion about writing in society than Socrates. He feels that writing provides a more logical way to organize thoughts and record information. "Leaving aside the implications for history, [writing] permits the accumulation of knowledge in a way that is inconceivable in a society where virtually everything has to be stored in the human memory" (Goody, 141). Goody feels that by writing things down, people preserve their society and their culture. When stories are written down, the same message can be conveyed through the generations and the stories will not be changed. However, if nobody writes down the stories the message can change and the stories could eventually be lost.
I feel that Goody has some good points in his essay. I feel that much of our society's culture could be lost if things were not written down. People would be much less educated without the use of pen and paper; our's would still be a primitive society. We wouldn't have computers, medicines, the Bible - the list goes on and on. There's no way that humans could possibly store in their memory all of the information that has been accumulated. I think that the technology of written text has not made our society lazy, but has provided for many advancements that we would never have without writing things down.
Goody has a very different opinion about writing in society than Socrates. He feels that writing provides a more logical way to organize thoughts and record information. "Leaving aside the implications for history, [writing] permits the accumulation of knowledge in a way that is inconceivable in a society where virtually everything has to be stored in the human memory" (Goody, 141). Goody feels that by writing things down, people preserve their society and their culture. When stories are written down, the same message can be conveyed through the generations and the stories will not be changed. However, if nobody writes down the stories the message can change and the stories could eventually be lost.
I feel that Goody has some good points in his essay. I feel that much of our society's culture could be lost if things were not written down. People would be much less educated without the use of pen and paper; our's would still be a primitive society. We wouldn't have computers, medicines, the Bible - the list goes on and on. There's no way that humans could possibly store in their memory all of the information that has been accumulated. I think that the technology of written text has not made our society lazy, but has provided for many advancements that we would never have without writing things down.
posted by Jenna @ 11:20 PM
1 Comments:
At October 7, 2004 9:01 PM,
Mikey said…
I agree with a lot of your comments about Goody's article. Humans do need writing to advance, and to really stay above water in today's society. It's funny and kind of ironic that writing is used as a memory tool today. This is especially true in schools. In all of my classes, I write down notes so that I remember what went on in class. It's been proven that the act of writing increases information retention.
I remember in elementary school we had to memorize all of our times tables. Even today in college those are useful for mental math that I have to do in my everyday life. In a way, I think that there is a place in our school system for memorization.
I can't really see writing things down as being lazy. Sometimes, its the hardest thing in the world to think of what to write for an essay or paper. It's funny, in history class we learn that primary sources are the most important things a historian can study. Many of these sources stem from oral traditions. An example are the Iliad and the Odyssey by Homer, which were memorized until many years later, when they were written down.
I kind of think that Socrates was being foolish in his statements about how writing is a bad influence on society. For a great philosopher, I would expect him to adopt a more practical viewpoint.
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