Firmin DeBrabander at The Hedgehog Review:
“I have discovered a potion for memory and wisdom,” the Egyptian god of the underworld tells the King of Thebes in an exchange recounted by Plato. This “magic potion,” it turns out, is writing. Previously, stories and histories, facts and fables were passed on orally. Minstrels would commit to memory the whole of the story of Troy, for example, which Homer ultimately put to the page. This was challenging work, time consuming, and imprecise. Stories were liable to variation, and exaggeration. Heroes were perhaps overly exalted. Details, dates, even characters would change over time. Writing solved many of these problems, and perfected our ability to recall.
But the King of Thebes is not impressed. Writing will “introduce forgetfulness,” he says. People will no longer “practice their memory because they will put their trust in writing… instead of trying to remember from the inside, completely on their own.” It is uncanny how his worries anticipate current critiques of technologies, which allow us to outsource cognitive duties and habits, and deactivate parts of our mind.
More here.