I agree completely with everything you said below. I actually wanted to
wrote something along your lines but I had 4 meetings and several minor
emergencies today so I forgot about that.
When I wrote about jokes in the USSR I meant mainly political jokes
challenging the regime. You are right that the jokes themselves can't
ensure critical thinking but they can be its medium. They also can be
medium for oppression as you nicely pointed. My point was to illustrate
that critical thinking is not either function or firmly associated with
print literacy.
Eugene
PS I'm sorry if I did not reply to some messages but I have been swamped by
the end of semester. Back to my email communication with my students... :-)
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nate [mailto:schmolze@students.wisc.edu]
> Sent: Thursday, May 20, 1999 5:41 PM
> To: XMCA
> Subject: Re: Print-literacy, oral literacy, and critical thinking
>
>
> Eugene and others,
>
> Eugene I agree very much with your assertion of oral literacy being
> devalued in our culture. And do not discount the ways of how
> oral literacy
> can be critical, but text itself can also serve that role. Speeches are
> very much a form of oral literacy and have been used as a way to control.
> I am very hesitant to put up any one form of literacy as being more
> critical than any other - even critical literacy itself. You
> gave examples
> of jokes as an oral literacy that allows one to be critical, but it also
> has been in the U.S. context a way to promote stenotypes of immigrants,
> minorities, women etc. It has been so to such an extent that I cannot
> think of an adult joke that would not be hurtful to another in some way.
> Maybe its my social history, but jokes have been based on some form of
> degradation. Listening to comics the humor that gets the most laughs are
> ones where someone is being degraded.
>
> This use of jokes is probably very different from what you had in
> mind, but
> that is the point. No literacy or component of it is totally
> critical or a
> product of cultural production. I do however think that a diversity of
> literacy can be beneficial and in different contexts a particular literacy
> can be seen as critical in relation to another as you describe. A written
> form of literacy in some contexts can be seem as liberating and as opening
> up new ways of knowing, but in others such as the U.S. it can
> also serve as
> limiting or censoring particular ways of knowing.
>
> Nate
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Eugene Matusov <ematusov who-is-at UDel.Edu>
> To: XMCA <xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu>
> Sent: Thursday, May 20, 1999 12:43 PM
> Subject: RE: Print-literacy, oral literacy, and critical thinking
>
>
> > Hi everybody--
> >
> > Phil wrote,
> > >But what print literacy allows is organization
> > > across vast tracts of space _and_ time (oral literacy only usually
> manges
> > > control over people through time, but not through very much space;
> hence
> > > their localised nature). It's not my intention to denigrate oral
> > > traditions
> > > but to emphasise the enormous control that can be exercised by small
> and
> > > powerful groups by combining print with electric communication
> > > technologies.
> >
> > I the Soviet Union the feedom of speech existed in the form of oral
> literacy
> > of joke telling (with anonymity of the authors). The jokes spread very
> > quickly in the vast territory of the USSR in a few days without use of
> > press, or Internet, or phone by ways of mouth. I'd not also assume that
> > oral literacry can be easily controlled (KGB tried) or very stable is a
> > sense that Phil wrote,
> > > Oral traditions (ie verse,
> > > myth, anything with theme, rythm, but not necessarily with fixed
> content)
> > > are literacies (which are technologies and mechanisms for social
> > > control/reproduction).
> >
> > It has very improvizational and democratic character. It can be very
> > critical. It give individuals "narrative weapons" at hand. One thing I
> > feel lost in US is constant reference to jokes. In the US there is no
> > common culture of oral literacy as it was in the USSR.
> >
> > I think it may be very difficult to appreciate oral literacy without
> > expereincing it yourself especially when we have well established
> narratives
> > of devaluing it from the past.
> >
> > What do you think?
> >
> > Eugene
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Phil Graham [mailto:pw.graham@student.qut.edu.au]
> > > Sent: Wednesday, May 19, 1999 8:21 PM
> > > To: ematusov who-is-at UDel.Edu
> > > Subject: Re: Print-literacy, oral literacy, and critical thinking
> > >
> > >
> > > At 11:38 19-05-99 -0400, Eugene wrote:
> > > >I respectfully disagree with an idea that print literacy is the same
> as
> > > >literacy.
> > >
> > > I didn't say that. Literacy does also not equate to being able to use
> > > language of some sort.
> > >
> > > >I think that literacy can be oral and print (and in any
> > > >combination of them,of course).
> > >
> > > I do too.
> > >
> > > >I also argue that critical thinking is not
> > > >rooted in print literacy.
> > >
> > > Same here.
> > >
> > > >It can a be a good question if literacy in any
> > > >form is connected to critical thinking. Definitely, I personally
> > > >encountered with cases of oral critical literacy (i.e., critical
> thinking
> > > >expressed and embedded in the form of oral literacy and supported by
> it).
> > > >Literacy as mastery of stories, narratives, and texts has many faces.
> > >
> > > Yes. My point is this: literacy and language are different. One is
> > > socio-biological, the other is a technology. Oral traditions
> (ie verse,
> > > myth, anything with theme, rythm, but not necessarily with fixed
> content)
> > > are literacies (which are technologies and mechanisms for social
> > > control/reproduction). But what print literacy allows is organisation
> > > across vast tracts of space _and_ time (oral literacy only usually
> manges
> > > control over people through time, but not through very much space;
> hence
> > > their localised nature). It's not my intention to denigrate oral
> > > traditions
> > > but to emphasise the enormous control that can be exercised by small
> and
> > > powerful groups by combining print with electric communication
> > > technologies.
> > >
> > > >Without doubts that in our society (unlike in some other traditional
> > > >society) a lot of official bureaucratic communication of
> power is done
> > > >through print literacy. However, things may change dramatically in a
> few
> > > >decades from now.
> > >
> > > I doubt it. But all that is prognostication, either way.
> Right now, the
> > > reality is that most of the earth is dominated by print and
> > > electronic comm
> > > technologies. A study of history shows that literacies build on one
> > > another, usually in the interests of the dominant classes.
> > >
> > > >Also, in some places
> > > >in US you can already encounter talking ATM. In addition, incoming
> > > >multimedia with multiple communicative channels and redundancy may
> also
> > > >undermine monopoly of print literacy on societal communication
> > > (especially
> > > >official one).
> > >
> > > I find this unlikely in terms of social control. I'd love to be proven
> > > wrong though.
> > >
> > > >As Nate recently wrote we should be careful in not making
> > > historically and
> > > >cultural particular as universal. I think we should critically
> > > investigate
> > > >of modernist ideological discourse bashing "illiteracy".
> > >
> > > I'm not bashing illiteracy, I'm saying that literacy is a
> > > resource, just as
> > > the internet has more and less beneficial uses. Some of the most
> brilliant
> > > and creative people I know are "illiterate" or "dyslexic".
> > >
> > > >I think it was a
> > > >tool for fighting traditional societies and probably contributed to
> > > >colonialism.
> > >
> > > That fight is redundant. Colonialism, as you note, can only be
> established
> > > by communication technologies, the most basic of which is encoded
> > > language.
> > > Colonialism and nationalistic expansionism have merely taken on new
> faces
> > > and techniques.
> > >
> > > >I do not want to romanticize traditional societies either but
> > > >I do not think it is only either-or approaches. By the way, we
> > > should not
> > > >scare ourselves to death by Third, Fourth, and Fifth, and so on ways
> of
> > > >doing things (I'm teasing at our recent xmca discourse
> > > suggesting that any
> > > >attempts to deviate from traditional "right" and "left" ideologies
> will
> > > >unavoidably lead to the EVIL like nazism) :-)
> > >
> > > Neither should we sit by and swallow the policy platforms. I'm
> > > not reacting
> > > to the badge, but the policies. I have spent the last 2 years
> > > investing the
> > > "Third Way". Historical similarities with the 30s are remarkable. I do
> not
> > > expect it to look the same or play out in the same manner.
> However, the
> > > effects of the current "Third Way" trajectory, I believe, will be no
> less
> > > repressive or destructive. It's not necessarily the intention behind
> the
> > > platforms, but the reactionary responses to them that are dangerous.
> You
> > > may think I'm being unnecessarily alarmist, but I can assure you I'm
> not.
> > > Already in Europe, overtly fascist parties are coming to
> prominence and
> > > winning elections. It's a considered observation, not a reaction
> > > to a name.
> > >
> > > Critical thinking is isolated without the technology to spread it.
> > >
> > > Phil
> > >
> >
>