Kelsey Steven - Art of Memory

In Plato's works, he discusses how the invention of writing will be the destruction of memory. Memorizing epics used to be an art that few people would do in society and was revered by others. It took a long time to memorize the exact words and inflections. The invention of writing allowed for people to have access to the stories so they could read them anytime they wanted without having to memorize them. The art of memorization would eventually become arbitrary, according to Plato, which, really, it kind of did. Today, we write everything and depend on it to be there. People don't ever expect anyone or even themselves to memorize anything unless it's in the art of acting. So, one could conclude that the main difference between oral and literal cultures is that oral culture requires memorization where the literal culture does not.