Ong's paper

From the beginning of Ong's writing, his overall argument is "Literacy is imperious. It tends to arrogate to itself supreme power by taking itself as normative for human expression and thought" which is particularly true in high-technology cultures. Ong believes that "Without writing, the literate mind would not and could not think as it does, not only when engaged in writing but even when it is composing its thoughts in oral form". He also takes "nonetheless" as an example to prove that "articulated truth has no permanence" and "full truth is deeper than articulation". In the second part, Ong argues that "writing was an intrusion, though an invaluable intrusion, into the early human life world, much as computers are today". But famous philosopher Plato used four objections to against his argument that first of all, "writing is inhuman, pretending to establish outside the mind what in reality can only be in the mind". Secondly, "a written text is basically unresponsive". Thirdly, "writing destroys memory". And fourthly, "Writing is passive, out of it, in an unreal, unnatural world". However, Ong thinks that the Platonic ideas in effect modeled intelligence not so much on hearing as on seeing. Because in Ong's opinion, the visual model favored clarity, but also shallowness cause 'I see what you say' lacks the depth of 'I hear what you say.'