It creates forgetfulness and discourages the use of memory. Western cultures have become too accustomed to “trusting” the written word. We forget that the written word is true ONLY as others have perceived it. Mastering the printed word is useful but you still will have “learned” nothing.
Masterfully stringing words together on paper using the alphabet makes us only APPEAR knowledgeable when we may actually KNOW little, if anything. The end result is what we REALLY have is not knowledge but “know-how”. We know how to accomplish the artful process of writing things down. Allowing ourselves to be hypnotized and thus persuaded by the magical powers of WRITING, with its inherent dependence on the alphabet, is NOT how knowledge is attained. Even though Western cultures would like to believe otherwise.
Knowledge is gained by thinking and not necessarily by writing things down. Writing can take away from the process of attaining knowledge, as much as it can add to it. Now, just think how you have come to think about things and organize the world around you.
Western cultures think “linearly”. The invention of printing, followed by mechanical type-setting, created then fostered linear left to right sequential thought. This is totally unlike the Chinese alphabet which is in “pictures”, giving us an all-at-once understanding of things, hence the saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Thinking in pictures is quite different from the more restrictive, linear, Western ways of thinking and organizing ideas, thoughts and things.
Instead of having to read through something linearly, to understand the Chinese alphabet takes non-restrictive, non-linear, non-sequential thought. By comparison, linear thinking is like tunnel vision–you end up looking at the world with blinders on. This is also why Eastern as well as Arab cultures do not trust linear thinking and will not obey documents written linearly, like peace agreements and treaties crafted by Western cultures.
Whenever these type agreements are signed and sealed in the presence of cameras and flashing flashbulbs it is more of a photo opportunity for Western politicians and the Western media and not taken seriously by the Eastern culture representatives who also are signing off on the suspect, questionable, linear-thought-out documents.
SUPPLEMENTAL SOURCE: the book: THE MEDIUM IS THE MASSAGE by Marshal McLuhan