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    Secondary orality is a term Walter Ong uses in his essay to define a new age of oral memory. Ong argues that memory has gone from mnemonics and formulae in oral culture to our current memorization skills using words as a label. Ong believes oral cultures had some qualities like spontaneity and group mindedness which are now only coming back through secondary orality. Unlike my other two blog posts, I really don’t have a stance on this one.
    Ong describes the oral culture’s memory for a good portion of the essay. He goes on about the rhythm and way words used to be organized to aid memorization. Ong sees them as forming the, “… substance of thought itself. Thought in any extended form is impossible without them, for it consists of them.” He talks about the obvious hardships surrounding memorizing a theorem or other large ideas. He also talks about the communal nature of needing a listener, you can’t talk to yourself, so inclusiveness is developed more. Ong seems to see preliterate societies as having a somewhat larger, richer, rhythmic, formulaic memory.
    In the third paragraph Ong describes the “interiority of sound.” He describes sound as, “The auditory idea, by contrast, is harmony, a putting together,” this is in contrast to the dissective, clear, distinct nature of the written word. Later he describes knowledge as a unifying force and, “without harmony…the psyche is in bad health.” He is stating essentially that we have lost knowledge. The fact we visually comprehend our language has somehow taken away a part of our humanity. That we have become less because our voices aren’t as poignant as they were before, and because we can relay our ideas to paper.
    Secondary orality is the new uprising of oral thinking. However, as Ong repeatedly makes clear, this second orality is nothing like original oral speaking cultures. Ong cites the new waves in electronic media, TV, radio, telephone, as reasons why we are again beginning to perceive like the illiterate cultures used to. However, this isn’t enough because we now, “plan our happenings carefully to be sure that they are thoroughly spontaneous.” Again this highlights Ong’s disdain for the current world person, just from this quote we can infer that the author feels current literate cultures have no spontaneity. Throughout the essay Ong only describes one example of the impressiveness of oral culture; an old presidential debate. He describes the oratory as robust and antagonistic, unlike the cool debates we see on TV now (which I don’t really agree with, check out Biden in the ‘08 democratic primaries).
    I really don’t agree with Ong. His ideas seem to infer that we are stupid because we are literate, which is ridiculous. I believe that it’s an interesting topic, but his argument seems to suggest we’d be better off if we couldn’t read. This isn’t because of anything Ong specifically said, but what he didn’t say. He never once gives credit to written language, and only describes oral culture in a positive light. It really doesn’t bother me that two presidential candidates aren’t screaming at one another outside in the middle of summer for two hours, I would rather be able to read.

Crowley, David, and Paul Heyer. Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Society. 6th ed. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon, Print.