Wading through a literary bog

What's in a list? by Goody
The intended audience for this article is obviously a very specific group of people with a very specific interest in the corrrelation between the history of listing various things in writing and the ability to compartmentalilze one's thoughts. The author lists various sorts of lists and their development and use throughout history. The article gets interesting when it gets to the section entitled: Listing and Cognition. According to Goody, "The existence of the alphabet therefore changes the type of data an individual is dealing with, and it changes the repertoire of programmes he has available for treating this data". The idea that writing as a technology, or the alphabet itself, as an integral tool in this technology, is capable of expanding the inert abilities of the human mind is one that I had never before considered. To imagine a world without our alphabet, and consequently, lists as we know them, is impossible to do. It is so ingrained in us at this point, that it would be improbable to go back now that we have the ability to "deal with masses of disordered information". It is in us to see order in chaos, but not so to look at an ordered situation and dream it in disarray. I believe this is the point Goody is trying to make, even if he is doing so in a manner that takes a great deal of concentration and compartmentalization to wade through.

Unpackaging Literacy by Scribner and Cole
This article expands on some of the ideas touched upon in the Goody article. For example, the section entitled "Speculations About Cognitive Consequences of Literacy", it is quoted that "the cognitive restructurings caused by reading and writing develop the higher reasoning processes involved in extended abstract thinking". The article also goes into detail about the different aspects and consequences of wrting and literacy among different cultures. A case in point is literacy among the Vai. The whole of this article is abstract theories on the importance and relative consequences of placing so much emphasis on literacy. Though the authors present evidence for both schools of thought, there is never a right or wrong answer clearly stated.