The Age of Literacy: A Visual Point of View

Turning sounds into visible objects radically altered the symbolic environment. Suddenly, the eye became the heir apparent. Hearing diminished in value and quality. To disagree with this assessment merely illustrates McLuhan’s belief that a private, left-brain “point of view” becomes possible in a world that encourages the visual practice of reading texts.

In this era, people will use their eyes than hearing. People will now practice to read books. Words are no longer alive and immediate. They can be read and reread.

The picture below is the Phonetic Alphabet that was used to make it possible.

 By at least the 8th century BCE the Greeks borrowed the Phoenician alphabet and adapted it to their own language, According to Greek legends transmitted by Herodotus, the alphabet was brought from Phoenicia to Greece by Cadmos.

People on this era had more privacy than tribal era. You can get information alone just by reading and reading than in tribal era when you are not in the group you can’t get the information. When people learned to read, they become independent thinkers.  People had the freedom to be alienated from others and from the immediacy of their surroundings.

People used text and alphabets to pass the information from the author and the reader. Proximity became less important no matter how many kilometers. People can still receive the information. Words were no longer immediate and alive. 

To know more about the Age of Literacy, click the clip below made by Mary Hermosa (June 25,2017)