Print encourages a sense of closure, a sense that what is found in a text has been finalized, has reached a state of completion.
Interpretation
The act of printing gives a finality to written texts, indicating they are complete.
Walter J. Ong emphasizes the role of print in creating a sense of permanence and closure in literature. Unlike oral traditions where stories evolve and change, printed texts are fixed, conveying the idea that what is written has reached a definitive state, accruing meaning and authority in its final form.
In practice
A writer might use this quote during a book launch to highlight the importance of their printed work.
Without writing, the literate mind would not and could not think as it does, not only when engaged in writing but normally even when it is composing its thoughts in oral form. More than any other single invention writing has transformed human consciousness.
Over the years, I realized there was a Republican philosophy that I liked. And then they lost it. And LIBERTARIANS had more of it. Because what I really believe is, let's spend a little more time leaving everybody alone.
There is a concept that is the corrupter and destroyer of all others. I speak not of Evil, whose limited empire is that of ethics; I speak of the infinite.
What ever the course of our lives, we should recieve them as the highest gift from the hand of God, in which equally reposed the power to do nothing whatever for us. Indeed, we should accept misfortune not only in thanks, but in infinite gratitude to Providence, which by such means detaches us from an excessive love for Earthly things and elevates our minds to the celestial and divine.
We do not quite say that the new is more valuable because it fits in; but its fitting in is a test of its value - a test, it is true, which can only be slowly and cautiously applied, for we are none of us infallible judges of conformity.
The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man's rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence. A proper government is only a policeman, acting as an agent of man's self-defense, and, as such, may only resort to force only against those who start the use of force.
If danger arises in the present moment, there may be an emotion. There may even be pain. But that's a challenge, not a problem. For a problem to exist, you need time and repetitive mind activity.
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