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Don't You Think It's Time To Start Thinking?
(wordsmith.social)
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this post was submitted on 15 May 2026
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Yea.
The writing/reading vs oral one is interesting to me. Obviously we’re both on one side of that transition, and so biased by that experience. And I certainly would like to have been exposed to more of a traditional oral approach to knowledge. But like you I think it’s a reasonable choice on balance because it can naturally complement what came before. Writing can extend the reach of what one can gain access to and memorise and then share and engage with orally. While engaging with a text orally, by speaking it out loud or to an audience while you’re completing the writing process can likely aid the reader quality of the written text. If used correctly I suppose.
The point being that maybe there are technologies which necessarily involve more or more categorical de-skilling than others. And maybe that’s a property of technologies that can be assessed and tracked.
I think the main problem with the technology of writing (combined with the loss of oral traditions) is that now all the knowledge is an object which can be destroyed, rather than a living memory. Arguably this has stopped being so much of a danger with the massively redundant nature of print and digital media, but we've been burned before - library of Alexandia, e.g.
One thing I like about an oral tradition is the inherent communitarian aspect of that medium, the idea that in order to gain knowledge you had to go talk to people and they'd speak it to you, mind-to-mind. Building not just strength in a community upon transmission, but the kind of understanding that comes from having it explained to you by someone who knows you. Learning from strangers and books often falls short of a true mind-meld. And the verbal skills you get from living in an oral tradition are something we can only guess at.
I'm content with written words though. They're some of my favourite things about life, actually.
For sure!
My only addition to the communal dimension you highlight, in line with my previous comment, is that a communitarian dimension can certainly develop around written text. You can get to know someone by their books and writings, and if you’re game to write your thoughts too, they may know you too. Not to mention letters and other more casual written formats.
Mass media, including the internet generally, even before social media, undercuts this dynamic, I think, through a saturation of both our social and content (a word I chose over “information”) bandwidths. A giant pipe of algorithmically curated content doesn’t leave much room for even noticing the author let alone forming a communal bond. Consumerism over conversation, one could say.
Additionally, moving the causal conversational exchanges online likely disincentivises real life communal engagements around written texts, such as book clubs, fan gatherings etc.
Which is all a hand wavy way of speculating that writing before the internet may have been something different than afterward with respect to how eroded the social dimensions of oral traditions have been. Of course there are trade offs again, especially with reach and connectedness. But once doomscrolling became the norm, I feel like a real categorical shift occurred.
Anyhoo, don’t let me chew your ear off! Very much appreciate the chat!
Cheers, yeah. Maybe we just need pen pals. :)