Damn Phaedra

"if the message is a song or verse sung aloud, you don't see it. If on the other hand it is a written document, it can't sing to you"

pg. 21

"what has been falsely written about cannot now be challeneged by the truth of traditional oral testimony extracted by witnesses by oral examination"

pg. 22

Havelock, The Muse Learns to Write

It seems this argument between orality and writing will forever be contradicting itself. It seems Havelock is longing for the days when someone's oral testimony could set someone free. His point is that doucments could have been forged, falsely accusing. But, at the same time, the "oral testimony" could never fly. Just because someone has an alibi or screams what they call the truth does not an a fair trial make. In modern court, the case does not sustain itself by witnesses alone. There needs to be some sort of tangible evidence, someone you can hold in your hands. And, unless you have a video of a person confessing to a crime, the court system would just be a big game of "he said/she said". Yes, we do have in invention called a "lie detector", but even that system is not fool proof. Those machines measure the blood pressure and heartrate. Ergo, it is assumed that when a person lies, he/she will get nervous, thus making their blood pressure/heartrate rise. The machine can be cheated: people can learn to slow their heartrates down. I'm an actor: I know how to remain calm.

Sorry Hippolytus. Look how far the oral tradition got you. Your father beileved what was said, which was a lie.People lie: it's our nature. No one is completely honest 100% of the time. We need more than orality to survive.

And since I'm going to be a lawyer, I'd be out of a job if we survived in just an oral culture.