Not having completed the reading assignment for Monday as yet, I was both impressed with and questioning of Walter J. Ong in "Writing Is a Technology that Restructures Thought." Never having thought about writing as a technology, it was as though a lamp had been illuminated in a dark room but, as with any idea, there are conundrums that arose out of Ong's theory; items that, if not innocently overlooked, were intentionally disregarded to make his argument. Ong maintains that “articulated truth has no permanence” (20) and that, “the oral sensibility is out to hold things together, to make and retain agglomerates, not to analyse” (20). Unfortunately, in the next sentence, Ong backtracks to state that, “all thought is to some degree analytic” (20), further stating that “the oral world is basically conservative.” I know he goes on to say that exploratory thinking is “relatively rare” (20), but he gives little or no credence to the attempts to hold together memories and thoughts which appeared in cuneiform, hieroglyphics or, much earlier, in cave paintings. How about the records of ritual masks and totems as forms of memory aids or history? Humans have always striven to maintain a history of their struggle and triumphs, even in the most pre-historic times. Yes, the alphabet was a mighty improvement, as was the wheel over logs, the gasoline engine over steam, the atom over coal, and any other improvement that the human mind has made over what has gone before. There was always something that went before which opened the door a crack into the future. Ong too quickly dismisses everything that pre-dated the alphabet. I believe it’s a fascinating theory but not a stand alone.