Writing, Change & Consciousness

"Writing not only records language, it also changes language - and consciousness." -Bernstein

Think about it: did we describe good memories as playing like a movie in our mind before the invention of film? Did we describe a less developed memory as being like a snapshot, only capturing one fraction of a second? Mediums determine how meaning is constructed in a lot of ways. Writing does not only record language; the manner in which language is recorded, shaped, laid out, determines how the text will be interpreted by its audience. Th structure of writing also alters the consciousness of the writer; the expected/intended structure of a text shapes a writer's ideas.

I think the effect that Bernstein suggests this has on consciousness involves the use of writing as technology. The birth of the book created an external brain that you can keep on yr shelf at all times. Writing affected memory, which was the main medium of cultural transmission in cultures that used primarily oral traditions.Writing became less an abstract form of notes to use for an oral performance but a more cohesive and concrete recording of ideas/sounds/etc that could be mass-produced and interpreted by other people than the author. Additionally, the fairly recent advent of comprehensive public education has made it so that information that is recorded and printed and distributed can be experienced by a much wider audience who can have a one-on-one engagement with the text (not relying on someone else to read it to them) so the possibilities for consciousness both personally and collectively, as we absorb literature as a culture and develop opinions around it, expand to some degree and usually, we hope, that the engagement of an individual with the larger world expands and their consciousness is opened up through the process.

Unless they are reading Nietzsche, maybe...