Second half of Ong

 The second half of Ong's book focused on the transfer from oral culture to literate culture. His analysis looks at the what was gained and lost in the process. A major concept from his writings was that the new era distanced the writer from the person receiving the information. This is both good and bad in a sense that discrimination and classicism completely disappears due to anonymous writing. There are many people who are afraid to share their thoughts and opinions for fear of discrimination and physical violence. When you read a book you don't see the color of a person's skin or hear what sex they are, you simply take the information presented and analyze it as an equal peer. I feel that writing was for the most part a positive technological advancement for society. One negative I have noticed from this is that you can take the writing and interpret it however you want instead of how the writer meant it to be. I have seen many examples of this in religion where one group of people can take a passage in the bible to mean one thing while another group take it to mean something completely different.