45 The dominant organ of sensory and social orienta­ became the organizing principle of life. "As we tion in pre­alphabet societies was the ear— begin, so shall we go." "Rationality" and logic "hearing was believing." The phonetic alphabet came to depend on the presentation of connected forced the magic world of the ear to yield to the and sequential facts or concepts. neutral world of the eye. Man was given an eye For many people rationality has the connotation for an ear. of uniformity and connectiveness. "I don't follow Western history was shaped for some three thou­ you" means "I don't think what you're saying is sand years by the introduction of the phonetic rational." alephbet, a medium that depends solely on the eye Visual space is uniform, continuous, and con­ for comprehension. The alphabet is a construct of nected. The rational man in our Western culture fragmented bits and parts which have no semantic is a visual man. The fact that most conscious ex­ meaning in themselves, and which must be strung perience has little "visuality" in it is lost on him. together in a line, bead­like, and in a prescribed order. Its use fostered and encouraged the habit Rationality and visuality have long been inter­ of perceiving all environment in visual and spatial changeable terms, but we do not live in a primarily terms—particularly in terms of a space and of a visual world any more. time that are uniform, The fragmenting of activities, our habit of thinking c,o,n,t,i,n,u,o,u,s in bits and parts—"specialism"—reflected the step­ and by­step linear departmentalizing process inherent c­o­n­n­e­c­t­e­d. in the technology of the alphabet. The line, the continuum — this sentence is a prime example­ "The eye—it cannot choose but see; we cannot bid the ear be still; our bodies feel, where'er they be, against or with our will." —Wordsworth