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guage and inherently non-oral culture? Or can metaphor be an equal part of both oral and literate cultures?

This discrepancy is furthered by another idea brought up in class: even in literate (especially print) culture, there are instances when remembering and commemorating practices are changeable from one occurrence to the next, or from one person’s experience to another’s. In another post to our class listserv, on September 27, 2001, I talked about some of the issues this changeability surfaces in the broader discussion of oral versus literate culture. Specifically, when fiction writers represent themselves in their stories, as they undoubtedly do in most cases, their “selves” change from one story or novel to the next. In her first novel, Author X may represent her na?veté in the main character’s journey through life. As Author X writes her second novel, maybe she will decide to include her own sense of independence and strength in her main character’s plight. This resembles oral tradition because the story (of her own life) is at least slightly different each time Author X tries to tell (or write) it.

In the summary of Albert Borgmann’s Holding On to Reality I wrote for this class, I said “it seems logical that if something is not written culture, it is oral culture, whether it is thought, said, or done.” This makes sense with regard to Borgmann, but it complicates the current discussion. In the first paragraphs of this essay, I suggest the main difference between oral and literate culture is a matter of removal. Oral culture is an immediate experience. Literate culture is a removed, representative, and more private or individual absorption. But now, if everything not written is oral, this difference seems less poignant. Especially in the case of thought: because thought is very private, and can often be a representation or interpretation, removed, not centered on the immediacy of words but rather on a flight of ideas. Is thought a structure of oral culture?

So what is my point? It seems to me I set up an idea and then proceeded to counter its viability as an argument. This is all just to show the confusion: between oral and literate cultures, between oral and oral cultures, and between literate and literate cultures. What is what? How can a line be drawn between the two? At first glance, it seems obvious that literate culture begins with written language. But it becomes more complicated when thought processes, interpretation, and the battle between spoken and written story come into play.

This brings the discussion to computers and our Information Age. The continuously evolving use and technology of computers has created a third kind of culture. It combines aspects of both oral and literate cultures, and it adds structures unique to its own culture—the computer culture, or the Information Age. These new structures are hypertexts, images, sound bites, Flash animation, links and cookies of websites, online audio and video broadcasts, etc., etc. But the old structures are also incorporated. Anything can be read on the Internet--in any language, any format, any color or size or font. Literate culture exists on the Internet, in the Information Age, at its height. Almost anything can be put into words, and words are finding new ways of expressing themselves (e.g. hypertexts). Additionally, the privacy and individuality of literate culture is increasing