Ong Speaks to Me

Final paper is in and yet I struggle still with Walter J. Ong, S.J. His language calls to mind the opening lines of the Gospel of John, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God." (John 1:1, RSV)

We were assigned to read two essays or book chapters written by him: "The Orality of Language" contained in his book, Orality and Literacy, published in 1982 and "Writing is a Technology that Restructures Thought" published in Literacy: A Critical Sourcebook in 2001. I read them first as assigned, as educational theory. Especially in his later writing, "Writing is a Technology that Restructures Thought" Ong was considered taking up the battle on behalf of literacy in the Great Cognitive Divide debate.

And yet, Ong spoke to me on a spiritual level as well. And speaks still. It is no wonder, for he was a Jesuit priest. The language of the Gospel of John was as much a part of his inner being as it is mine.

It is my sense from these two articles that Ong is writing through his own personal great divide. Torn between writing, which he equates with literacy, and orality he almost demonizes literacy while reserving warm approving language for orality. (See quotes in Words for the Journey in this blog.) Writing separates and distances us and yet writing, literacy, allows humans to think abstractly and objectively. Due to the technology of writing we have science, philosophy, history and so on. And yet, I feel him longing for a time before all writing, for the spoken world "oral, mobile, warm, personally interactive (you needed people to produce spoken words)" ("Writing" 22).

In the Bible God does not write, God speaks. God speaks to humankind through words or the Word, and through actions. God loves, protects, punishes, pardons, shelters, cares for but God does not write. Writing separates and distances our emotions from our intellect so that we can think abstractly and objectively, yes. But also distances us from those qualities that make us human and make us God like.

This is stuff of the spirit and much to ponder upon. I must read more of Ong.