Speech vs. Writing

The arts of speech and writing are the two essential forms of communication vital towards ensuring stability in society. Through these communication forms we grasp everything from information to entertainment, education to leisure, all of which we need to function through life and love it. To choose which one is more important in today’s society is difficult to understand seeing how the two coincide and reflect one another so fittingly. But when it comes down to it, it is definitely writing which takes precedence over speech in terms of importance to today’s society.
Speech has been carried out throughout history as the most fundamental manner in communication, the base for which all other communications can exist. It is the only form of primary orality ever to or that ever will exist, simply for the fact that there is nothing else on it’s plane. It is in it’s own right unique because of the way it functions and the way it influences. The incorporation of sound with speech attributes to this uniqueness. And from that sound, speech becomes universal. We all essentially hear the same sounds, more or less, and so we all attain the same knowledge being emitted from the speech. The only thing different is how we choose to interpret that knowledge. Speech is indiscriminate to any and all, the only difference is how we choose to cause that speech to influence. It is the fundamental manner of communicating, universal in every sense, the base for humans to communicate in our society. But since it’s origins we have long evolved from that basic form and have, since, extended our communications reach far beyond that anticipated. Which is why writing has now taken precedence over speech in our society.
Although a secondary orality, writing has become the superior form of communication in today’s imperfect world. Where speech lay the foundation for communication, writing carried it to higher echelons. From literature to the internet, writing is literally in every façade of today’s society, and without it communicating would still consist only of speech. Innovations in technology, such as the invention of the printing press and our present-day internet, would not function at all without writing. Everything would be oral and, while that isn’t all negative, it is detrimental in a lot of ways. Writing allows for communication to be available in virtually any location. Although the invention of the radio made it so that speech could be heard over larger distances, writing and its implementation through the internet and other means gives it a sense of concrete concision that can be accessed anywhere at any given moment, something speech has always lacked seeing as how speech and it’s relationship to sound makes it so that it dies just as it comes into existence. Both forms foster a “communal sense”, making each universal in their own regard. But the universality derived from writing, again, gives us that concrete record, something we can go back to over and over again, now more effectively than ever because of the internet. And what writing offers that speech cannot do is impose literacy on a society now seemingly deteriorating in that sector. While there will be many who will argue that technology is dragging down literacy and our standards of intellectualism, there is no denial that writing has mad literacy more possible in today’s society more so than in any other society. Now we have literature, we have film (which depends on writing to make it work), we have music, and we have the internet, all of which depend extensively on writing. Our society is now structured in a way which literacy needs to flourish or, at the very least, needs to remain relevant, Speech can get you so far. And where it can’t writing compounds the effectiveness of speech in forms that can be translated and, thus understood in ways that, perhaps, speech could not achieve.
Writing is essential above any other form of communication in today’s society. It’s vital to the spread of literacy in our society. The question is whether or not we allow our society to become more literate, whether or not we choose to use the tools placed before us to lift our intellectual beings beyond what we are now. In today’s society, we do not realize just how great we have it in terms of all of the knowledge and ways of attaining it we now possess. While writing is important in today’s society, it does have it’s flaws, but only because we develop these flaws, only because we allow ourselves to become more introverted or because we allow our communication to be more impersonal. As with every new technology, we have to ensure that we do not become too dependent nor become too ignorant of what they have to offer. We have to find the grey area in between, so that we may reap the benefits of writing and other technologies, while not succumbing to the dangers of technological advancement.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/05/25/mccain-reverses-course-on-immigration-reform-again-drawing-far-right-rebuke/#more-29509

When focusing on the upcoming election, alot of Americans tend to overlook the pressing issue of immigration reform, a touchy subject that has implications for, both, our internal security and international standing. To give a brief synopsis on the above article, Steve Benen focuses his argument on McCain's stance on immigration reform, and how the Republican Senator has flip-flopped on the issue a number of times, at first pushing for comprehensive immigration reform and then shying away from it, coincidentally enough around the time after he received the Republican nomination. This is a prime example of how indecisive McCain can be, and how he, like so many other politicians, will attempt to please whatever audience for the sake of attaining and consolidating power, even at the cost of his integrity. Just the fact that he would flip-flop on, arguably, one of the most important issues of our time showcases his weakness as a leader, and puts into question whether we as the people can ever fully trust him. If you're going to have a stance, stick to that stance with your head held high, regardless of whatever adversity you'll face.
After reading the article, I realized how little I actually know of McCain's stance on immigration reform, so I decided to look into it a bit. From what I've read, straight from John McCain's website, he plans to finish "securing" the border through physical and virtual, protect the rights of American workers, and, overall, just seems to plan to implement and enforce what we already have in place. The citizenship process will be just as difficult, time-consuming, and costly for immigrants coming here who, in all reality, have dismal amounts of time and money when they get here. American workers will get top priority and immigrants will be forced to learn English, pass a citizenship course, and pay back any taxes they've passed on. The wall on the Mexican-American border will most likely continue to be constructed. To me, this all seems like it's the same old song and dance. McCain just seems to be reinforcing what Bush has already started in regards to immigration reform. These plans just prove to be unnecessarily costly in so many regards. The wall being built on the border is costing millions in federal spending and the position it puts American in as an international power will prove to be even more catastrophic. The physical prescence of there being a division between us and the rest of our North America neighbors demonstrates to the rest of the world our selfishness, how we are willing to sacrifice international unity with our own neighbors for the sake "national security". What's more telling is how we place so much emphasis on national security and how it pertains to immigration reform, as if the two go hand-in-hand. Immigrants are stigmatized to the furthest degree in society as a group of individuals who will do nothing, but the jobs nobody wants to do and who will contribute only crime to this land. While many politicians will argue against that view, that they do value the immigrants who come here, the fact of the matter is that the immigrant populace hardly ever harbors any real respect and dignity in America, something seriously flawed with the system.
So what are a people supposed to do with no firm foundation to work off of? What are they supposed to do without any actually respect, time, or money once they're here? They try to make ends meet with the cards they are dealt. I come from a family of immigrants as I'm sure alot of you do as well. And for as far as I've known every immigrant who I've known has tried their hardest to work to make the future brighter for those who will follow in their paths. The immigrants who come here are some of the most genuine, good-hearted, hard-working human beings, only trying to attain the type of peace and prosperity scarcely found in their homelands. The least this country can do is make the citizenship process that much easier, something I'm hoping will be addressed and actually happen in the upcoming election.

First Post

Our society has made it so that the media is omnipresent in our day-to-day lives. Whether or not we like to admit, it is an integral part of all of our lives, whether it shows itself in the obvious forms of print and television or whether the information is relayed more subtly, such as through music. The question, when it comes to media, is how far do we allow it to control our lives? How much reliance do we have on it? And is it safe to depend on it too heavily? Personally, I feel as if we shouldn’t rely on it as heavily as some of us do. We can’t trust the media to always act responsibly, for personal responsibility, when it comes to media, is the most vital. We need to understand that the media (the news channels, editorials, the radio broadcasts, etc.) is just there to relay information. And so it is up for the individual, each one of us, to take and gather this information and to dissect it and process it in our own mentalities to formulate our own opinions, our own ways of thinking. Far too many of us succumb to believing exactly what the media outlets tell us, which is the wrong way to go about it. I try my best to keep up with current events. Sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t. Most of the information I receive is from the internet, for I seldom watch television and hardly ever listen to the radio. I despise the media sometimes. Some of the headlines given, for example, on late-night news, to me seem completely irrelevant and ignorant. So many issues pertaining to the larger world around us and these media outlets choose instead to ignore relaying us that information for some “local news headlines”. That’s the problem with the media sometimes. Real news hardly gets out. Global news gets cast aside because we remain to self-indulgent, only concerned with what affects us, when we should really be more encompassing towards a universal perspective to try and do and learn what is right for the world around us. That’s not to say that there aren’t media outlets which actually relay this type of message, but for the most part few of us try to seek any other perspective except the ones thrown in our faces. So this is where personal responsibility is key. Each individual must make the effort to learn the greater scheme of things and not copy the views of those around them. A machine shouldn’t speak for men, nor should no man speak for any other man. The media will always have it’s respective bias, but it is up to us to decide what we do once we pick up that ball. Do we run with it? Or do we even pick it up at all?


http://www.crooksandliars.com/