Aggregate Stability, Anylitic Flexibility

By: Andrew Sakach

Class Book Entry: 2

In Ong's book the attributes of oral cultures being cultures that have aggregate knowledge as oppose to analytic knowledge is interesting to me to compare with our own and why they are that way.

Ong states that oral cultures have to have aggregate knowledge because of the bases in which they store their cultural frame working, through orality. While literate cultures can more easily question their own cultural models (and it's a good thing because these models are so new, species wise). While aggregate knowledge is nice to have because it does give their culture a sturdy, known to work model to live by, they are more hard to change and adapt than literate cultures. While it is true that literate cultures may gain outdated information the ability to be analytic and critical is good in order to insure usefulness of information within their societies.