“WRITING MUST BE UNDERSTOOD AS TECHNOLOGY, AND THEREFORE AS ARTIFICIAL”

I totally agree with the idea of understanding writing as a technology, because it has shaped and powered the intellectual activity of people during the years. Technology has the characteristic of reinforce human activities, so that, instead of wasting raw material we can make the most of it. Writing is a complex activity that humans have been developing since antiquity, and its evolution will never stop.

Even if writing is a common activity for everybody and can be seen as something natural, people are not born with this ability, so it results totally the opposite to a natural practice. As Walter Ong (1982) points out: to say that writing is artificial is not to condemn it but to praise it. Like other artificial creations and indeed more than any other, it is utterly invaluable and indeed essential for the realization of fuller, interior, human potentials.

For children, learning how to write implies to burst their ideas of organizing ideas, it also implies so much effort, so much time and sometimes more than that this glorious practice, implies psychological aid. With this I just want to support the idea that writing is an artificial practice that everybody has to face from the beginning the life.