. . . [S]peech being natural or at least the natural expression of thought, the most natural form of institution or convention for signifying thought, writing is added to it, is adjoined, as an image or representation. In that sense, it is not natural. It diverts the immediate presence of thought to speech into representation and the imagination. This recourse is not only 'bizarre', but dangerous. It is the addition of a technique, a sort of artificial and artful ruse to make speech present when it is actually absent. It is a violence done to the natural destiny of the language. . . .*Although this appears to contradict the implicit equivalence of a writing and a thought-feeling experience, let me give some credence to one more credible than I in matters of language-speech-thought. I will not contest the conclusion but try to construct a way of seeing this point of view. Having done that, I can then see if here in some way, somehow the hypothesis I have posed holds up even here. Let's see.
1. Have a thought.
2. Express that thought.
3. The natural expression of thought is speech
4. Writing violates the natural presence of speaking.
5. Representation of thought and employing imagination in the representation or reception of thought are the culprits for this violation.
6. Writing is art and artifice applied to or added on to thought/speech.
7. These unnatural add-ons make language look and sound like speech, but that kind of speech as an act in the present with speaker and listener is absent.
8. The natural destiny of language is speech as an in-the-moment act.
9. Other forms of expression are a violation of language's best and true destiny.
10. Thought expressed in speech is what we would have heard (understood, felt, seen, etc.) by a listener.
Have I got it? It appears in sum that speech trumps all other forms of expression. If that is so, and it is because other forms like writing add and affect the content or quality of the-said, so be it. Note that the _it_ is a value: The spoken word is preferred over the written.
I don't think we are that good, that good at expressing ourselves. I don't think we are that good retaining what has been said out loud in our presence. And we are not very good at transmitting to others what is said without putting the-said in our own words and translating it up or down so that a new conversant will get the full gist and details of the original. In view of these reservations alone, there is a case for trying to fix meaning, that is by inscribing it and passing copies of the original around to spread the word--to a particular audience.
Some have said that reading a book is like having a conversation with the author. If this is so, and also, note, a value, then what has been written to be read has the same objects as speaking, listening, and responding. The written may not be the same as the said, but the written as the said may well be more accurate, more precise, more of all that we wish to communicate. We want our language partner to have the same of what we have.
Juxtapose the above with this from "On Reading," from our data trove at Noematics, claiming reading's value over the spoken. "Today is tomorrow's yesterday. But to understand will take knowing about more than one yesterday, or having a photo without caption or annotation, or a useful audiovisual clip without order and sound because someone forgot to script it. How will you do it without reading?"
The gist and details of this is to ask that a reader/language partner conclude the same thing from the same data. Without writing and reading, what we would have from history will not be available. And some, in this context students, need to have historians and historical figures to converse with. Without? The past is lost in unrepeatable sounds because no one from then is present here to speak.
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*Derrida, J. (1997) Of Grammatology. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press. Page 228.
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