Among other things, modern capitalism emerged historically in print culture in Western culture.
I would say that print culture in Western culture can be characterized as visual culture on steroids.
By oral culture 2.0, Ong means all the communications media that accentuate sound.
Ong is hopeful about the possible positive potential of oral culture 2.0 and its cultural conditioning of our consciousness. Perhaps I should point out here that Ong does not happen to discuss, or even express any concern about, possible negative potential of oral culture 2.0.
For Ong, the communications media that accentuate sound reached a certain critical mass by 1960, which has continued to this day.
So the bottom line for Ong is that oral culture 2.0 is a hopeful development.
Ong expresses that hopeful note in his book The Presence of the Word: Some Prolegomena for Cultural and Religious History (1967), the expanded version of Ong's 1964 Terry Lectures at Yale's Divinity School. Ong delivered the prestigious Terry Lectures in the spring semester of 1964. On November 30, 1964, Ong turned 52.
Now, Rob, you and Pope Francis, who is scheduled to visit the United States in September, are concerned about our current capitalism and its accompanying social Darwinism.
Now, if Ong is right about being hopeful about oral culture 2.0, then being hopeful about it could include being hopeful that Pope Francis' challenging critique of capitalism and social Darwinism might resonate well with certain Americans.
Naturally we should not expect the pope's challenging critique to be well received by the Koch brothers and other economic libertarians.
Now, I see oral culture 2.0 as the deep psychological conditioning out of which our still-emerging visual devices such as computers and the Internet and other devices with screens have emerged comparatively recently. At times, I have lumped these visual devices together and referred to as print culture 2.0.
But I said about that print culture 1.0 is visual culture on steroids, compared with the visual culture 1.0 of ancient and medieval times. By comparison with print culture 1.0, print culture 2.0 should not be characterized as visual culture 1.0 on steroids. It's not.
Now, to explain why print culture 2.0 is not like print culture 1.0, I would have to discuss Ong's various ways of describing print culture. But I am extremely reluctant to undertake doing this, because it would be rather technical for OEN.
Suffice it to say that Ong's most thorough discussion of the infrastructures of print culture 1.0 (= visual culture 1.0 on steroids) can be found in his book Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue (1958) and in various studies in his books Rhetoric, Romance, and Technology: Studies in the Interaction of Expression and Culture (1971) and Interfaces of the Word: Studies in Evolution of Consciousness and Culture (1977).
Ong's most widely known and most widely translated book Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (1982) provides a handy introductory overview of his thought.
However, my 4,300-word paper "Understanding Ong's Philosophical Thought" contain certain relevant material that might interest you. It is available at the digital commons of the UMD library. Here's the URL:
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
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