Baron, A Better Pencil

"People had learned to trust and use certain kinds of writing--legal texts, public inscriptions, business documents, personal letters, and even literature [. . .] writing, on closer examination, turned out to be neither more or less reliable or ambiguous than the spoken word, and it was just as real."

This section of Baron's writing I found particularly interesting. After reading Ong and Achebe's works, it was easy to draw comparisons to what each author had to say. Ong spent most of Orality and Literacy focusing on the change from the spoken language to the written one, and how societies changed as a result. Achebe's Things Fall Apart is an indirect example of both works. The village of Umuofia is visited by missionaries who bring about the greater change towards the written language with the Bible. The people of Umuofia don't immediately transition to the missionary's way of life, but slowly get there. With the Bible present before them, they see that writing is another way to keep track of their stories and other important memories.

Baron, in this portion of the text, also mentions that the literacy rate in ancient Greece was "well below 10 percent;" however, it is interesting to see that the majority of people put faith in documents that they could not read or understand without the help of someone else.

Now we don't trust the sanctity of a verbal agreement; a contract or deal must be written out. The difference between then and now isn't quite shocking. By looking at Greece, the rapid use of written communication is a clear indicator that agreements would forever change. When a permanent form of documentation is available, it is much more reliable then a verbal contract, where one member of the contract could surely change their minds or attempt to change the agreement because the other member can't remember it word for word.