Assumed metaphors and the Literacy Thesis

As described by Buell, the metaphors equating “progress” with “improvement,” and “improvement” with “technology” are so deeply linguistically and symbolically embedded with our cultural consciousness that they emerge as inherent facts. The further “assumption that continuous technological proliferation is inevitable and proper” is similar to the misguided assumption often deconstructed in Anthropological texts that all cultures move teleologically towards ‘civilization’ (Buell: 3). In the 19^th century Social Evolutionists outlined predictive explicit models of human social evolution, asserting a set of linear stages from “savage” to “barbarian” to “civilized”, systematically mapping the notion of upward progress where European civilization and technology represented the zenith of development. Though these paradigms were, of course, later rejected as erroneous and flawed with clear racist foundations, comparable concepts often covertly remain in contemporary theory.

Remarkably akin to the Social Evolutionist divide of savage versus civilized is a stark dichotomy separating orality and written literacy exemplified in Jack Goody and Ian Watt’s literacy thesis, which asserts written literacy as that which facilitates an intellectual consciousness surrounding the distinction between past and present, between opinion and truth, and between myth and history. They argue that those belonging to a culture possessing an alphabetic system are positioned on the highest scale level of intellectual capability, and thus closer to ‘civilization,’ whereas those belonging to a culture that speaks with merely an oral literacy are yet to reach that apex of development. The rationality acquired by virtue of written literacy is posited as that which promotes intellectual objectivity and subsequent skepticism surrounding received tradition, cultural practices, and the universe as a whole; it this questioning that supposedly facilitates the development of democratic social and political forms akin to European and Western civilization. Goody posits Greek civilization as the catalyst of literacy development, asserting it was their syllabic alphabet that served as the engine for advances in science, philosophy, politics, and culture. Their thesis makes the addition of written literacy as the preceding unit in Buell’s outlined metaphors such that: literacy = progress = improvement = technological development = civilization.

 Upon first glance this model often seems rational, but it is salient to outline that the claim that the physicality of writing fosters a consciousness surrounding the truth of social fact is problematic because theoretical consciousness is not dependent upon visual stimuli. Further, written literacy is not a mutual process for the benefit of the nation being ‘developed,’ as movements towards eradicating illiteracy were (and are) often structured around an unmalleable Western system forced upon nations deemed in need of being ‘civilized.’  While ‘developing’ nations and cultures of oral literacy aren’t explicitly referred to as ‘uncivilized,’ their oral practices are outlined by Goody and Watt as lacking rational thought, thus implying subordinate intellectual capabilities. Assuming this lesser cognitive and cultural consciousness and lack of rational thought assumes a scale of development where technology and civilization are positive forces for the good of humanity.

It would be false to assert that literacy is entirely unrelated to social progress; a writing system facilitates communication and knowledge advancement over time and across space. It is through Ecocriticism of literature, Buell outlines, that ideals of environmentalism are variously reflected and the environmental imagination is manifested. There is no predictable and inevitable progress, however, dependent upon written literacy development, or spectrum of rationality following a unilinear and social evolutionist model of evolution; there are no absolute standards or predictable forms development, and further, there is no virtue and 'goodness' intrinsic in those forms themselves.


Literacy Thesis pdf: http://worrydream.com/refs/Goody%20-%20The%20Consequences%20of%20Literacy.pdf

Goody, Jack and Watt, Ian. The Consequences of Literacy. Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 5, No. 3., 1963