A phenomenology of reading

Abstract

Western cultures and education systems are marked by a “chirographic bias”: literacy is seen as an unquestioned good, which needs to be brought to all human cultures, where it is disseminated into the minds of children through the process of education. Literacy, however, is not a natural phenomenon, but a textual technology that was invented and refined over the millennia. It has a profound impact on consciousness, memory, embodiment, and cultural practices and discourses. This chapter approaches the phenomenon of literacy by examining literacy as a technology which is inserted into the processes of human consciousness. Inserting textual technology into developing human minds by teaching them how to read and write restructures human perception and shapes cognitive practices. It alters the child’s existential field and relationships to others, places, things, and time. Literacy brings great gains to cultures, but it also brings great psychological losses: indigenous cultures and non-textual practices are devalued and eventually extinguished in the progressive march of textual colonialism; for literate minds, the immediacy and fullness of the sensory world begins to diminish and many adults feel alienated from nature and the body. The printed book is a forerunner of the contemporary information and communication technologies (ICTs) and understanding the virtual practice of reading as technology can help us understand the consequences of increasing virtuality, which our children encounter in the media landscapes they increasingly inhabit today.

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