This portion of Ong's work brought to light the fact that although oral communication has many attributes, it is constantly disappearing. With this disapperance one must respect the value the written language holds.
But what gets lost along the way and who's version should one follow? I think we see this in everything from recollection of history to the telling of current events.
Historians are in a constant battel with what has been written, what artifacts remain and what stories were told in order to understand a village or community. Unfortunately, they are subject to what they are allowed to see by those that have left breadcrumbs behind. What you discover in the end is all that you have been permitted to discover.
The written language arguably becomes an artifact that sustains itself beyond the oral language. However, we risk discarding what is no longer necessary simply out of necessity to absorb new knowledge or data. Yet, a division will continue between oral cultures and those that use writing as their language. Communication is compromised and we all lose something in the end.
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