Blindness and Literacy

My research for my dissertation-to-book project is, in part, concerned with the sense of hearing in early Christian theology.  In the world of chant scholarship (a world unto itself, of which my research is not a part), there has long been speculation about how the oral transmission and aural perception of musical and liturgical norms in the mostly pre-literate society of the early Middle Ages differed from later transmission based on transcription and literacy.  I was reminded of the orality-vs.-literacy Gregorian chant debate by an interesting article in today's New York Times Magazine, about the gradual demise of Braille, and hence of literacy, in teaching methodologies for the blind.

Though sighted, I learned to read Braille as a child.  My best friend in elementary school was L., who had been blind since infancy.  L. was mainstreamed into our public school classroom with the help of a teaching aide, who read Braille and corrected the assignments that L. produced on her Braille typewriter.  L. taught me how to read Braille too, and gave me a stylus and a slate so that I could punch out the symbols myself and hence write letters and stories in Braille.  We had great fun reading to each other, using our respective fingers and eyes; she would accuse me of cheating when I scanned the Braille page visually instead of feeling out the narrative with my fingertips.

I have somewhere read the theory (and now can't remember the source) that literacy is a cause of aggression (if I'm recalling correctly, this theory held that the cognitive norms of pre-literate or non-literate societies are somehow more productive of peaceful human interaction).   The Times article seems to suggest, however, that the inability to read, now prevalent among the non-Braille-tutored blind, gives rise to chaotic, disorganized thinking, which seems to me one of the root causes of aggression.

Above:  "Blind Tom" Wiggins, a nineteenth-century piano prodigy and autistic savant.