Instead of rebutting the much-circulated I’m a College Professor. Writing Isn’t as Important as We Think op-ed in The New York Times, let me argue something tangential or parallel: thinking is not central to writing.
Or maybe I’m thinking of “opposite.” I don’t know. I’m trying not to think, which is very difficult even though my fingers have this very practiced autonomous body thing going for it. Like how your heart goes on in your body without your control. I’d look it up, but then I’d really have to think. I’m pretty sure searching is a form of thinking.
Perhaps now would be a good time to bring up Socrates and see if he can get us some wisdom. I minored in philosophy in college and read The Phaedrus. It was extremely challenging. Man. I had a time with that. So, I think (crap) I’m supposed to talk about how Socrates was super smart, but he didn’t write. So, like, that’s kind of interesting. What’s also interesting is that Socrates was operating before the codex was invented or even the internet. So, I think (dang it) he’d have a heck of a time maintaining his stance on literacy. But maybe he’d be one of those political influencers that crashes the opposing party’s political events and makes a mockery of them. He’d be pretty baller at that.
Okay. I think (drat) I have to admit to myself that remembering college and synthesizing that whole experience with a certain style of YouTube influences is thinking and actually creating novel-ish thinking to boot.
I should’ve gone with a premise like “thinking is sort of not central to some sentences” or “writing is not central to language” or “thinking is not central to conversation,” which, let’s be honest, a lot of conversational stuff has less thinking than writing in it.
I have done a terrible job at this.
My attempt at calling attention to “my brand” while also contributing to an internet controversy, albeit amongst mostly English teachers, hasn’t worked out too well. I’m an English teacher after all. I didn’t get into this business because my marketing chops are good. Well, I do have a public relations degree I haven’t used. I do most assuredly use my English minor, which, when I got back to school to become an English teacher, gave me a very slight edge. Or maybe not. I don’t remember. I also have already mentioned to you that I have a philosophy minor. I could argue I have used that, if not in an official capacity. It does still sit on my résumé, and those were some of the coolest classes I took. We had a lot of great conversations because, you know, philosophy is very much about the love of thinking. And, yeah, if you were a philosopher, you’d be into all the types of thinking because that’s interesting. Perhaps you wouldn’t think writing to be central?
Then again–ugh, now I’m really thinking!–you can probably get away with saying writing isn’t totally central to a philosophy class. But reading has to be essential, right? So, that means writing is essential because you have to have the writing to get to the reading and then if people don’t do more writing and create morephilosophy, well, won’t philosophy just end?
I mean, we do have YouTube to teach us how to create homemade pasta or properly spackle walls (I have successfully done both). And we have these awesome natural bodily implements to speak and to listen to each other and can even switch this communication configuration as in sign language. And then we have brains that remember a lot of stuff, the important stuff. Well, debatable. But writing, totally invented for bureaucracy. Nothing else. Cuneiform was a record-breaker. Or record-maker, I should say.
Let’s be serious though. I think we all learn by being in the IRL presence of each other. I mean, that’s essentially a classroom, right? Good discussion happens in-person. So this philosopher is right. Writing isn’t central to the classroom because my students aren’t doing a majority of writing when they are in there. They are reading and talking and listening.
I wonder if there are classes that this guy is speaking of where people just write all class long. No talking. Central writing. And can they write without thinking? Seems like writing requires more thinking than talking. I mean, yeah, we have to move facial muscles and make hand gestures and listen. But writing is constantly iterative, always tinker-able. And all we have is words. That’s a major constraint. You’d think you have to be pretty creative to operate without all of the things regular thousands-of-years-old human communication has for it.
Let’s do an analogy. Thinking is one thing, building a house is another. I’d say building the house is harder. Okay. Not a good analogy. Writing is analogous to building a house? Give me a break. But, you know, there’s something there. Our brains are central to our thinking, but our brains can’t think in a vacuum. We have to manipulate the world, so to speak. And both writing and house-building, aren’t those types of world manipulations?
This kind of just occurred to me. And you shouldn’t come to any sort of conclusions that writing made me get to it: If reading is an unnatural ability that our plastic brains can learn really well, and writing is the creation of reading material, and our society necessitates at least reading to understand all the things we know to continue the status quo and build out our society further, you’d think writing would be kind of a big deal.
Maybe we just need to be readers and conversationalists though? Maybe we should try that out?
Wait, I think this is an evolution of a joke I made earlier about philosophy classes, but I evolved it out. I’m afraid writing may have been the guilty culprit.