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From: chuck@melmac.harris-atd.com (Chuck Musciano)
Newsgroups: sci.lang,comp.cog-eng,sci.psychology
Subject: Re: Effects of poor writing? (Long)
Message-ID: <2031@trantor.harris-atd.com>
Date: 5 May 89 11:45:59 GMT
References: <4352@ttidca.TTI.COM> <3893@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu> <2018@trantor.harris-atd.com> <2679@puff.cs.wisc.edu>
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Reply-To: chuck@trantor.harris-atd.com (Chuck Musciano)
Organization: Advanced Technology Dept., Harris Corp., Melbourne, Fl.
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In article <2679@puff.cs.wisc.edu> brian@cat28.CS.WISC.EDU (Brian Miller) writes:
>I disagree.  "Free distribution of information" _is_ necessary in preserving
>freedom, but I don't see where literacy comes in.  I can get a truckload of
>information out of an evening of TV and never see a written word.

     I was thinking about this also.  I think what may be more important about
written media is that they are more "permanent".  One way to exploit a person
is to present them with constantly changing messages, so that they can't
remember what you said before.  If you are literate, you can write it down and
save it away.  I suppose you could record visual things, but that is harder.
I am reminded of "Animal Farm", where the pigs constantly repaint the rules on 
the barn wall, but none of the animals can remember what used to be there.

     Isn't literacy wonderful?  How neat to be able to pluck an event from a
single book, and have a reasonable chance of evoking the same memory in a 
large group of literate, culturally similar people.  How sad to think we may
lose that capability.

Chuck Musciano			ARPA  : chuck@trantor.harris-atd.com
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