I’ve noticed that in chapter 2, Postman, in
Amusing
Ourselves to Death brought up a debate of simple devices that we use in our
daily lives: Print vs. speech. He made an interesting point that proverbs
and sayings are important but it would be informal to say them in court and the
jury would not take you seriously. He says, “On one hand, there is a residual
belief in the power of speech, and speech alone, to carry truth; on the other
hand, there is a much stronger belief in the authenticity of writing, and in
particular printing. The law is what the legislatures and judges have written.”
Also don’t we need to have actual proof and not verbal if they are guilty or
innocent? However in the ‘“doctoral oral”’ their test is not a written test but
an oral test, hence the name. But why is it a tradition to do an oral test? I
would think that it would be more intimidating to do an oral test and maybe
that is why they chose to do it this way. But Postman says, “But of course, the
written work matters most.” But isn’t speech as important as written work?
Which is more important print or
speech?
The spoken word has power in the moment, but the written word lasts. Think of how hampered we'd be if we had to rely on oral communication alone to transmit all knowledge, culture and communication. We wouldn't be able to discuss this very idea until September, when we're face to face..
ReplyDeleteOh, I guess you could have uploaded a video of yourself. Seems like a bother when we can just tap out these words, and communicate perfectly well.
Speech and documentation both have certain aspects that will never be taken away, Oral tradition has brought us irreplaceable stories, and written word has simply education the world. Documents, in my opinion, do have the stronger argument; because as the books says , they are reviewed, challenged, and edited to be accurate. Oral tradition can be altered, just as we all learned in the game of telephone when we where younger, the spoken word is almost never the same as it was originally intended to be. Also, we must consider lying, who's to say that no one has ever lied on the stand in front of a jury. As the books describes, truth must be "dressed up" in the correct attire in order to be deemed the truth. In all ,documents are as close to the truth as we could ever hope to come to; but these days it's hard to tell the truth through any kind of medium.
ReplyDeleteIn our modern society, the importance of speech rivals even that of print because it can also be recorded and preserved for people to view in the future. Although speech can be recorded, it isn't nearly as convenient as simply writing a message. It provides a clear, straightforward and serious tone which isn't a very consistent factor with speech. Also, print/documentation can be easily edited and revised just as lleyva4229 suggested.
ReplyDelete