[Air-L] Plato and writing

[Charles M. Ess]

Thanks for this, Jonathan - first of all, for the occasion to go back to 
JD Peters' account of the Phaedrus.  It is more than worth the (re)read 
on any number of, in my view, most insightful and richly helpful points 
and matters.
In this context, the main point is that while Peters alludes to the 
place and influence of the Phaedrus on many accounts of / writers on 
communication - he himself (scrupulously) avoids any connection / claim 
/ characterization of the critique of writing as a moral / media panic: 
FWIW, neither of these terms appear in the book.

Secondly, many thanks for the paper - delicious reading, as a colleague 
once said.

Lastly and FWIW, your account of the rise of the trope of Phaedrus as 
media panic makes good sense to me.  I'm still curious as to more 
specific sources and inspirations - but again, not as a critique thereof 
so much as interest in how different writers / scholars develop the 
argument.  I've a few promising articles to review that I hope may shed 
some light.

Again, a thousand thanks for the excellent tips and elucidation.

best,
- charles



On 26/04/2019 23:26, Jonathan Sterne, Dr. wrote:
> The best statement of the media theory reading the Phaedrus is probably chapter 1 of John Durham Peters’ Speaking into the Air.
> 
> I think the persistence of McLuhan and Ong’s explanations of orality (autocorrected to “morality” so draw your own conclusions) and literacy can be chalked up to some of the following:
> 
> —they are compellingly written and easy to understand explanations of complex phenomena.
> 
> — media history has a modern bias which means most people in the field wouldn’t know where to to to fact check.  In other words, McLuhan and Ong are often the only texts people in media studies know on the subject.  Maybe Havelock or Innis, maybe Eisenstein.  But there’s a huge body of scholarship in the history of the book that reads very differently.
> 
> —there is also almost complete ignorance of the findings of modern archaeology in media studies (even among most of the media archaeologists) , which would transform our understandings of the emergence of human communication.  For an example from another field, see Gary Tomlinson, A Million Years of Music.
> 
> — it is easy for (white?) readers to somehow read past McLuhan’s racism and Ong’s theology (in part because Orality and Literacy is scrubbed of the mysticism in Presence of the Word).
> 
> And a self-citation for good measure:  https://sterneworks.org/TheologyofSound.pdf
> 
> —Jonathan
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-- 
Professor in Media Studies
Department of Media and Communication
University of Oslo
<http://www.hf.uio.no/imk/english/people/aca/charlees/index.html>

Postboks 1093
Blindern 0317
Oslo, Norway
c.m.ess at media.uio.no