Writing and Time

In its movement from phonic unit to phonic unit, the act of speaking encourages two conflicting notions of Time: that it is a transition from Moment to Moment that is either discontinuous, or is a flux. But one premise that these two notions share is that Past does not exist, i. e. that a previous Moment disappears in the process of the arrival at the next. In contrast, the act of writing illustrates a different sense of Time--the previous words are preserved in the movement forward, such that every current one is understood as not standing alone, but as the culmination of all that has preceded. Hence, the Past exists, as ingredient in the Present. Furthermore, writing presents a graphic example--the blank space following the latest character--of a contention from a previous posting, that the Future never exists, and that what is always next after the Present is Spatial. These Spatio-Temporal characteristics are not accessible in the act of reading, which is generally a process of representing something that is already given in full. Therein, Time is experienced as the filling out or the unfolding of something that is pre-given, such that Future is in some respect already inscribed in the Present. Spontaneity and creativity are thus inconceivable to the reading mindset, which might explain the fundamental conservativism of religious or legalistic 'Originalists', i. e. those who believe that all that humans need to know is contained in Scriptures, or that what Americans must do is contained in Constitutional or jurisprudential precedent. One indication of this inconceivability is that one main line of criticism of those who do not subscribe to the view that there is 'nothing new under the sun', is that the latter are irresponsible, as if they speakers denying the existence of the Past, not writers who preserve and extend it. And, ironically, 'Creationists' tend to be among those to whom creativity is inconceivable.