A Counter-RevolutionThe Emergence of Post-Literacy and

Secondary Orality

Sept. ‘01

The farther ahead we go the further behind we get !

Christian researcher George Barna wrote the following in his book Second Coming of the Church:

“The vast majority of Christians today do not behave differently because they do not think differently, and they do not think differently because we have never trained them, equipped them, or held them accountable to do so...

“For years we have been exposing Christians to scattered, random bits of biblical knowledge through our church services and Christian education classes. They hear a principle here and read a truth there, then nod their head in approval and feel momentarily satisfied over receiving this new insight into their faith...

“But within the space of just a few hours that principle or truth is lost in the busyness and complexity of their lives. They could not capture that insight and own it because they have never been given sufficient context and method that would enable them to analyze, categorize, and utilize the principle or truth.”

He may not have realized it, but George Barna has discovered the secondary orality of America, which points to the need for oral, narrative communication styles.

We need oral communication methodology in our churches if believers are ever going to be able to grow, mature and reproduce. We also need the necessary support structure to augment and sustain it.

“We now live in the early part of an age for which the meaning of print culture is becoming as alien as the meaning of manuscript culture was to the eighteenth century. ‘We are primitives of a new culture...’”

Marshall McLuhan The Gutenburg Galaxy: The Making of Typographical Man1962

“All values apart, we must learn today that our electric technology has consequences for perceptions and habits of action which are quickly recreating in us the mental processes of the most primitive men.”

Marshall McLuhan The Gutenburg Galaxy: The Making of Typographical Man1962

Jim Dator of the University of Hawaii said that post-literate (soon to be known as media-literate) cultures emerging around us in the present -- and looming vastly larger in the future -- are as different from cultures based on print as print cultures are from those of oral societies.

“Since we live within the envelope of the dying (or marginalizing) print cultures and the rise of audio-visual ones,” Dator said, “those of us who have been conditioned all our lives ‘to think like a book’ usually ignore, disparage, or simply cannot understand those who may learn to think and to express their thoughts through moving holographic images...” (con’t.)

(con’t.) “Being so ‘literally’ brainwashed by print, we can no longer truly understand the new cultures that are overwhelming us than we can truly understand ‘the savage mind’ of pre-literate societies we distorted or destroyed.”

Jim Dator, Professor Center for Futures StudiesUniversity if Hawaii

What are these men saying that has implications for us?

Some global, cataclysmic, irreversible changes are taking place…

and they are touching even the literate world we are so familiar with…

transforming this world into an unfamiliar one for many of us.

Let’s take a look into this world...

Name These

Oral Communicators name geometric patterns by what they resemble: plate, box, piece of pie…

Those with even a small amount of education, though, name them as circle, square, triangle: all learned conceptual ideas!

Which does not belong?

Both a saw and a hatchet will ‘work the log’, but a hammer won’t. An oral communicator wouldn’t include the hammer as part of the grouping. A ‘group of tools’ is conceptual thinking!

Which does not belong?

Some oral communicators who associated with literates were aware that others think differently. One replied: A wise man will say the cup doesn’t belong. When asked what a foolish man would say, he replied: A foolish man would say the orange doesn’t belong.

We are used to logical thinking. We grow up that way. It is our default!

I F A = B

AND B = C,

C = ?

A

BC

A

BC

You have ten seconds to read the following list, tell me which three places you need to visit and what you need to buy from each place...

Tabl e #1

pnsi er awdr ah hsur bt niap

wsecr s “2/ 1danspaper

yd 01di ngr oc

dnaLci r baFr epust akr am kooh

t ehcor chambur ger

sgge

bared

Tabl e #2

Super mar ket har dwar e Fabr i cLand

Eggs sandpaper 10 yd cor di ng

Br ead pai nt br ush cr ochet hook

hambur ger ½” scr ews pi ns

In table #1 you saw a list as an oral communicator sees our lists -- nothing but a bunch of incomprehensible symbols!

Carilah sebuah kisah peribadi yang ada kaitan dengan hidup anda, atau baca beberapa kisah benar tentang mereka yang mengalami perubahan radikal kerana suatu pertemuan dengan Tuhan.

أنت ما يفهم أحد يوجد هلقصة هنا ستجد اآلن؟ عليهتقرأ أو معه، ترتبط شخصالحقيقية القصص بعض a تغييرا حياتهم تغيرت ألناسالله معرفتهم بعد aجذريا

حقيقة معرفة

Esiste qualcuno che capisce veramente a che punto sei nella tua vita? Trova una storia personale con la quale ti puoi identificare oppure leggi qualche storia di persone la cui vita e' stata radicalmente cambiata da un incontro con Dio.

Before becoming a businessman and renowned public speaker, Paul Henderson played professional hockey for 18 years. He is remembered fondly by Canadian hockey fans for scoring the winning goal of the 1972 Canada/Russia hockey series.

All of these read the same. The first three paragraphs were probably nothing but indecipherable symbols and letters to you though. The way you saw most of these is the way an illiterate sees our lists, sentences and paragraphs.

Poetry is an oral art form -- at least it was meant to be!

Somebody read for us the following poem by e e cummings...

r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r who a)s w(e loo)k upnowgath PPEGORHRASS eringint(o- aThe):l eA !p: S a (r rIvInG .gRrEaPsPhOs) to rea(be)rran(com)gi(e)ngly ,grasshopper;

r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r who a)s w(e loo)k upnowgath PPEGORHRASS eringint(o- aThe):l eA !p: S a (r rIvInG .gRrEaPsPhOs) to rea(be)rran(com)gi(e)ngly ,grasshopper;

grasshopper who, as we look, now gathering up into THE LEAP arriving as to rearrangingly become grasshopper

This poem, No. 276, takes literacy to its ultimate. Read as we would normally write it doesn’t make sense. It has to be SEEN AND READ to be appreciated!

In a formal survey, one oral communicator was told: Precious metals do not rust. Gold is a precious metal. Does gold rust?

He responded: Do precious metals rust or not? Does gold rust or not? Precious metals rust. Precious gold rusts.

Another was asked: In the far North, where there is snow, all bears are white. Novaya Sembla is in the North and there is snow there. What color are the bears?

He responded: I don’t know. I’ve seen a black bear. I’ve never seen any others...

When asked the same question the second time, he responded: To go by your words, they should all be white.

One oral communicator was asked: Try to explain to me what a tree is.

He responded: Why should I? Everyone know what a tree is.

How would you define a tree in two words?

Apple tree, elm tree, poplar tree...

Question: What would you tell people a car is?

Answer: Buses have four legs, chairs in front for people to sit on, a roof for shade, and an engine. But… when you get right down to it, I’d say -- If you get in a car and go for a ride, you’ll find out!

Question: What sort of person are you, what’s your character like, what are your good qualities and shortcomings?

Answer: I came here from Uch-Kurgan, I was very poor, and now I’m married and have children.

Question: Are you satisfied with yourself or would you like to be different?

Answer: It would be good if I had a little more land and could sow some more wheat.

Question: And what are your shortcomings?

Answer: This year I sowed one acre of wheat, and we’re gradually fixing the shortcomings.

Question: Well, people are different -- calm, hot-tempered, or sometimes their memory is poor. What do you think of yourself?

Answer: We behave well. If we were bad people, no one would respect us.

Another responded to that same question: What can I say about my own heart? How can I talk about my character? Ask others, they can tell you about me. I myself can’t say anything.

When asked what he thought about a new village school headmaster, a Central African man replied:

Let’s watch how he dances.

When we require oral communicators to respond to our Western teaching style, they just don’t measure up!

The fact is, in a world of oral communicators, we are the learning

disabled.

What is your response to what you have just read, heard, experienced or observed?

Do you have any immediate applications or associations?

Now let’s dig a little deeper...

A new generation is riding the crest of a new wave. Following the media revolution of the 60’s, the world has changed into a new era that has been termed: Post-Literate.

Post-Literate

The West and many emerging countries are entering the post-literate information age. In the post-literate world, learners have a base of literacy, but their primary means of learning have shifted back to oral and aural media.

This new generation learns and processes in terms of media such as television (drama, news, music, interactive graphics or text), radio (music, news, discussion), telephone (often in conjunction with TV or radio), computer (which involves basic literacy, but more visuals, icons, graphics and click skills), etc..

In post-literate society, writing and reading are still of value, but only as they facilitate manipulation of other media.

The Western linear-type thinker has a high cultural value on Factual Knowledge.

This affects the priority in learning, planning, and the underlying sense of truth.

Truth is seen as fact.

Knowledge is seen as the accumulation of facts.

Oral culture, on the other hand, places priority on relationships which produce a concept of dynamic truth and not a focus on facts.

The dynamic relational concept of truth is called Functional Knowledge.

This focuses on relational skills. Truth is seen in terms of personal integrity and fulfilment of relational and family obligations.

The non-literate relational thinker, with a focus on dynamic truth and functional knowledge, has a high facility of memory and an active skill of visual association. This is called Oral Literacy.

The post-literate uses visual skills to process images and activities more than writing skills. While the post-literate has an active attitude toward interactive visual media, his formal skills in traditional literacy may be weak.

Post-literate technology assumes traditional literacy skills, but the typical post-literate is a Passive Literate.

The literacy skills needed for visual dramatic portrayal on TV or a music video, for example, are more for perception than knowledge.

Literacy is assumed and even necessary, but is not primary. It serves as an adjunct to the event-oriented dynamic visual world of interactive media.

The post-literate tends to favor an oral-aural learning style, which complements this visual event-oriented literacy.

Thus in many ways the post-literate is more similar to the non-literate than is the literate.

The learning and communication preferences of the post-literate are similar to those of the non-literate. They process information and make decisions in similar ways. Both are far removed from the way a literate person communicates, processes information, and makes decisions.

The gospel must be sown from within a culture. This presents the challenge of how to get inside a cultural worldview perspective and how to cast the Good News and all of its implications in attractive, understandable, meaningful, and acceptable terms.

A study of cultures and their communication formats is highly beneficial in knowing how to effectively communicate cross-culturally.

The challenge of increasing illiteracy and secondary orality is before us…

and it calls for the inclusion of the narrative and story in our communication.

Can we adjust our communication styles and preferences to meet the challenge?