I’ve been running through Ong’s “Characteristics of Orally Based Thought and Expression”. This week, we’re moving out of characteristics into more heavier and grander Psychodynamics of Orality with…
Oral Memorization
To sum up, with an over simplification, Ong’s observation is that literary memorization is verbatim while oral memorization, although claimed verbatim, is more or less general ball park.
Your modern image of memorization might involve hunching over books and queue cards. Repeating phrases and trying to translate them into your mnemonic device of choice. The goal: precise repetition.
Those who’ve tried to memorize any Shakespeare might have that daunting feeling.
Ong focused in on poetry, plays, and sonnets – all things minstrel. An area that would have some of the oldest documents where a select few would try and store it, while also having a deep history of oral traditions.
He discovered that oral memorization, is unexpectedly different, while really good at mimicry it isn’t exact after all.
It’s close. It can even fudge complexity, but when broken down there are differences: word variations, name changes, passage alterations. And when looked at very closely the memorization breaks down more into patterns, no matter how complex. The keys to unlock were more like linguistic Lego to mix and match that could create long sonnet’s with complex rhyming structures almost infinitely.
At the heart of it, is an ability to memorize the general structure, or pattern. Like a joke you tell, so long as you make sure to get the punchline.
This form of memorization is not unlike nature in a way. Trees, shells, snowflakes, fingers – all are pretty close. Yet, when you break them down they aren’t exactly the same.
Literate Memorization
As literacy took hold, we started to offload memorization onto technology. Scrolls & books galore! This memory was more or less published. Memorization became our strong rigid ability to repeat like a printing press in our mind.
Our literary binary mind loved it. Letters, words and sentences in exact order and location with proper punctuation.
And then of course to store all of that, the literary mind does what a literary mind does, creates systems to store it.
Verse numbers, Dewey Decimal Systems, catalogues, and file folders to look it all up, reference and find. More systems, libraries and librarians to be custodians and assist.
Our “memory” started using physical space to assist. Example: Page 33, like about a third of the book in, and on the page it was the paragraph above that blue and pink graph.
And then came binary digitization. We continued to file things into millions of folders, suffixed with indicators of data types ( doc, xls, txt, exe ). Oh the folders!
Then the web came, and folders became so much more! Prefixed with protocols and domains with subdomains and even more suffixes; protocols and slashes and query strings! We offloaded more and more information and memory. And the systems became more an more complex.
Our memorization was a badge of time and effort. A reward for an exhaustive journey to capture it.
Current Memorization??
Then came the search engine.
This may be the single catalyst for the end of classic literate memorization. Memorization simplified and completely offloaded onto technology.
While librarians and search catalogues use to do the work, now a single text field was all that was needed.
Combine this with the smart phone, where this single field is available at all times anywhere you go… and well, off load away. Why store those silly little facts in your mind?
Then we didn’t even have to type anymore.
Now we can have even more complex discussions with AI.
All those complex literary systems wiped under the rug. They still exist in complex code and LLMs and algorithms on the hardware that runs it all, somewhere in the cloud.
But, in the end what did it do?
There is no memorization
With all that information we’ve offloaded now at your finger tips, there’s no need to really memorize anything. The only time you really need it is short term, i.e. you have a test coming up, or want to impress someone for a first date. But long term… purged.
There’s a million versions
As we’ve uploaded, the cost has become incredibly cheap. Anyone can post minor variations of anything online. And boy oh boy do they. Variations have become a game of whack-a-mole and cease and desist letters. Each one having it’s validity scrutinized and questioned… even called “fake”.
And all the while, searchable and usable. It’s a full time job knowing exactly what’s real. But you know which version you believe is, so go with it.
Precision is out the door
And just like that, we don’t need to know the little facts anymore. We can ball park it, and when we need that precision of memorization… look it up.
The only thing we really need to know is how to ask.
“Generative” Memorization
Ya – that’s a tongue-in-cheek heading for sure.
So… Oral Memorization is about generalized patterns; about using systems to unlock and almost generate the facade of precise memorization. It’s close, and that was good enough.
And our current way of Memorization? It about generalized searches; about using technology to re-discover or download short term which gives the facade of precise memorization. It’ close, and that’s good enough.
Both of these are generative. The details don’t really matter and It’s all about the gist and the tools to get there.
A few extra notes
“But it is exact!”
Something I found kind of interesting that was skimmed over. Ong quickly noted that those using Oral Memorization swore up and down that they always performed something exactly the same every way. That there version was the same as everyone else’s. And yet, when in actuality it wasn’t.
Maybe this is because oral culture is coupled with an agonistic nature? Maybe it’s the loss of objectivity? Neither likely won’t admit fallibility. Maybe there’s something else…
But it is fascinating how there’s a strong ones belief in truth is.
The Literaty
This entire topic is about general patterns. In any pattern, there’s anomalies and outliers. I’ve always ball parked it to about 2% – though again, big give or take depending.
2% of any general group is expected to be high performers or low performers.
So in that belief- I don’t think everyone will be like this. There will always be those that are more skeptical, analytical, more driven by precision, able to memorize things in ways I don’t understand. The Cultural Development: It’s Cultural and Social Foundations study indicates it could be as high as 15%.
I jokingly call it The Literaty, ( emphasis on the “ah” – li·ter·ah·tee ). Though in my imagining of our aliterate ( oral ) future, will this group become more be secretive or stay public opposition to what’s happening in the world? I don’t know, after all this is all a theory.
