Notes from the Walter J. Ong Archives: "For instance, Ong was quite adimate about the fact that not only does primary orality not exist anymore, we, as literate people, are unable to accurately comprehend a primary orality consciousness. This doesn't mean that primary orality is primitive, it's just different. It's like anything else. Once you've had a cognitive shift, once you've obtained a new perspective, or learned a new bit of information, you can't unshift or return to the pre-changed understanding of an issue. For instance, at some point when studying Ezra Pound, one will learn that he had become an anti-Semite and a supporter of Mussolini. Upon learning this, one can choose to reject Pound as a subject of study, one can use this information to better understand Pound's work, or one can ignore it. What one can't do is unlearn this information or return to a time when they didn't know this about Pound. Because literacy permeates our society, literacy permeates our consciousness and we can't unlearn this cognitive shift. What Ong isn't addressing here is individual literacy."