Writing and Technology
Technology (Wikipedia) - It embodies the human knowledge of solving real problems in the design of standard tools, machines, materials or the process.
Wikipedia, then states in an economic sense, sees technology as the current state of our knowledge of how to combine resources to produce desired products (and our knowledge of what can be produced.)
Like most technology has evolved, writing was implement used in the security of individual materials, commerce.
(Schmandt-Besserat, shown here in Iran )
"An archaic counting device"- Schmandt- Bessart
From the readings of Professor Schmandt-Bessart in "How Writing Came About" and our in class discussions, writing (the recording of information in order to share with others) developed as a method of efficency in commerce. The clay envelopes, or bollas, not only had the impressions of clay tokens on the outside, but the actual tokens were also sealed inside the envelope.
The desired end product of this technological development was accountability and accuracy in the barter system.
While today we do not use bullas or clay tokens, the ideology behind this system is still used in modern society. For example the following is from the Federal Highway Management Administration concerning semi-truck freight.
The trailer is sealed with a reference number that is electronically included with the manifest information to promote cargo integrity.
Writing has innumeral benefits from helping communicate ideas and thoughts to billions of people through out thousands of years, giving growth to societies, culturals, and economics, but as writing evolved it so did the stratification of society.
With writing comes knowledge and knowledge is power.
As Claude Levi- Strauss said " seems to be linked with writing ... is the establishment of hieracrchial socities, consisting of masters and slaves, and where one part of the [population is made to work for the other part."
An American example of this is when English colonial assemblies passed "Negro Acts" that prohibited slaves from growing food, assembling, earning money, testifying in court, or being educated.
Before the federal Voting Rights Act 1965, literacy was used as a segrated barrier imposed on African Americans and poor whites along with immigants in the United States.
Click on here on LITERACY TESTS to view the Alabama version of a literacy test.
It is a PDF file.
Even today literacy and the knowledge that comes from being able to read and write still have a profound effect on the possible social stratus of which people can attain . This Ohio State research report relates poverty and education level into an easy to read fact sheet. This sheet and other related information should be part of all highschool freshmen related curriculum in the United States.
Writing as a technology has exapanded the human horizons and is a necessity in modern survival. It has been used to ensure freedom written in the U.S. Constitution, but at the same time writing has been used as an invisible cell constricting the lives and freedoms of the many illiterate by the literate who use writing as a technological weapon fueled on greed and hatred.
Wikipedia, then states in an economic sense, sees technology as the current state of our knowledge of how to combine resources to produce desired products (and our knowledge of what can be produced.)
Like most technology has evolved, writing was implement used in the security of individual materials, commerce.
(Schmandt-Besserat, shown here in Iran )
"An archaic counting device"- Schmandt- Bessart
From the readings of Professor Schmandt-Bessart in "How Writing Came About" and our in class discussions, writing (the recording of information in order to share with others) developed as a method of efficency in commerce. The clay envelopes, or bollas, not only had the impressions of clay tokens on the outside, but the actual tokens were also sealed inside the envelope.
The desired end product of this technological development was accountability and accuracy in the barter system.
While today we do not use bullas or clay tokens, the ideology behind this system is still used in modern society. For example the following is from the Federal Highway Management Administration concerning semi-truck freight.
The trailer is sealed with a reference number that is electronically included with the manifest information to promote cargo integrity.
Writing has innumeral benefits from helping communicate ideas and thoughts to billions of people through out thousands of years, giving growth to societies, culturals, and economics, but as writing evolved it so did the stratification of society.
With writing comes knowledge and knowledge is power.
As Claude Levi- Strauss said " seems to be linked with writing ... is the establishment of hieracrchial socities, consisting of masters and slaves, and where one part of the [population is made to work for the other part."
An American example of this is when English colonial assemblies passed "Negro Acts" that prohibited slaves from growing food, assembling, earning money, testifying in court, or being educated.
Before the federal Voting Rights Act 1965, literacy was used as a segrated barrier imposed on African Americans and poor whites along with immigants in the United States.
Click on here on LITERACY TESTS to view the Alabama version of a literacy test.
It is a PDF file.
Even today literacy and the knowledge that comes from being able to read and write still have a profound effect on the possible social stratus of which people can attain . This Ohio State research report relates poverty and education level into an easy to read fact sheet. This sheet and other related information should be part of all highschool freshmen related curriculum in the United States.
Writing as a technology has exapanded the human horizons and is a necessity in modern survival. It has been used to ensure freedom written in the U.S. Constitution, but at the same time writing has been used as an invisible cell constricting the lives and freedoms of the many illiterate by the literate who use writing as a technological weapon fueled on greed and hatred.
posted by Phillip Mooneyham at 3:36 PM
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