Reading Assignment 4

So far, after reading through A Better Pencil, I have learned some interesting things as pertaining to the development of communication technologies. Dennis Baron's book first focuses on the evolution of writing, the way it was first received by the Greek scholars (especially Plato and Socrates) and the way we perceive information. These ideas are similar in many ways to those of Ong, though they are more intent on pushing us the reader an opinion rather than a study. Baron is unlike Ong in that instead of showing us the more studious side of the study of writing and it's instruments we are being told that a technologies evolution pertaining to writing is a good thing. Now this might be an assumption on my part, I have only read three chapters, but the title A Better Pencil to me shouts that Baron is telling me a better technology has come to surpass the pencil in necessity and ubiquity.

An interesting point that Baron brought up was that of Thoreau and his critique of the telegraph. In a long history lesson on Thoreau and the pencil industry, Baron explains to us that Thoreau might not have been the unbiased aside philosopher we so imagined him being. Because of his large stock in the pencil trade we better understand that he has more to fear of the telegraph than the average lay-man. What this made me wonder is what exactly sparks the fear in certain people when a new technology arises to supplant the past ones? Is it only the people who have invested heavily in old techs (in Thoreau's case, the pencil), or does this fear have root in other people as well? Hopefully this can be answered later in the book.