Introduction-Assignment 2

Ellen Wetli
Laura Mandell
Metaphor as a Technology
Introduction- Assignment 2


1. Socrates primarily agreed with Thamus, a character from his Egyptian story, that “letters” would ‘create forgetfulness in learners’ souls, because they would not use their memories.’ This is not true because even if a person does record and idea or event, he/she don’t rightly forget it. He also noted that writing hurts human beings because they cannot defend their views to a reader. Therefore, we are deprived of learning the tools of how to defend our own opinions when they are challenged. Also, we lack the knowledge of when we should defend ourselves and when we should be silent. I agree with Socrates with this concept because imagine that a person writes a beautiful argumentitive statement about a certain political issue. If he/she cannot defend the ideas and expand on the written arguments in the statement, then people are not likely to fully agree with him/her.
Goody would most certainly not agree with Socrates’s theory that writing is primary used for “recreation” and “amusement” because he believes that literacy is ‘fundamental to the history of all “advanced” societies.’ Goody states that the higher the literacy rate in a country is the more technologically and sociologically advanced it is because we can do much more without ‘face to face’ confrontation. He means that it is much more efficient to spread our intellectual ideas throughout the world through writings than by individual confrontation. I agree with Goody’s concept because the most powerful countries in the world today (United States, England, Germany, China, etc.) are those which have the highest intellect. For example, the highest scores on national tests, the highest percentage of high school students graduating, and hundreds of other intellectual statistics are usually claimed by these powerful countries. Most of the time, it is unheard of for a boy from a small African village (where the literacy rate is usually lower) to attend an elite Ivy League university. Goody says that when we take time to write ideas in a logical fashion, their influences can be spread much further and much more accurately than by word of mouth. Writing preserves those ideas that would have ‘ceased to exist’. Written records have taught us about events in the past and how we can look to the future. “History is a gateway to the future,” and without written records, we would not have a clear understanding of this gateway.

2. I don’t see writing as a ‘technology’ as Goody does. He states that the “technology of the intellect” is the “way that writing affects cognitive or intellectual operations.” It is a very complicated process for our brains to be trained to extract information from writing materials and then interpret it. It requires an “acquisition of new motor skills, and different uses of eyesight.” Our brains are influenced by the ‘internal-external interaction” of writings, which is an interaction between what we read word for word and how we interpret it based on past occurrences or even personal opinions. He also stated in his article some examples of the material aspect of technology of the intellect such as mathematical tables, where “writing is a prerequisite.” He means that the literate people in society are able to expand their knowledge by advantage of additional tools that illiterate people would not decipher. The word ‘technology’ should not be expanded to included writing and/or other means for thinking. When I think of technology, I think of new Ipods or PDAs. I think of a great amount of memory and features compressed into smaller and smaller versions of previous equipment. I understand that the ‘technology of intellect’ is a rather complicated concept and that, in fact, it does help us pursue higher education with more exposure to resources. It is also similar to technology in that it is a broad concept and branches out to many aspects of our mind and the intellectual world of information. Perhaps, one day I will be faced with a difficult problem where I might want to use my intellect in a broader sense to obtain more information. However, it will probably never cross my mind that I am relying on the expanded definition of technology to solve my problem because I don’t think of technology in that aspect. Then again, after reading these essays perhaps one day I will.