linearity

narrative

sequence

 characterizes thought in writing-dependent cultures while primary cultures follow oral cyclic thought.

oral cyclic thought, which is characteristic of primary oral cultures, versus linear or historical or evolutionary thought, which depends on writing

is, in biology, not an appropriate model to fall back on insofar as correction and feedback play a significant role.

Professor Wade Allison argues that linearity is not appropriate in biology, or in any scientific context where correction or feedback is significant. He argues that data on therapeutic radiation, exposure to elevated natural radiation (such as the presence of radon gas in homes), the diseases of Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors and other data are consistent with non-linearity. Consequently he suggests that radiation safety levels could be raised while still balancing the risks of personal medical and public environmental radiation exposures. Such a change would have major effects on the acceptability and costs of nuclear technology

is an artificial creation structured by the technology of writing and literacy.

W. J. Ong, for instance, argues that linearity is a feature of literacy, and vice versa: 'sparsely linear or analytic thought and speech are artificial creations, structured by the technology of writing.'

is, by definition, authoritarian, repressing the audience by implicitly suppressing the complexity of the viewer's own construction of meaning.

Le Grice argues that linearity is by definition authoritarian: 'It is the linear coherence of the narrative and its conclusion which represses the subject (viewer) by implicitly suppressing the complexity of the viewer's own construction of meaning' (p. 292)

 critically constrains our ability to think creatively about alternative patterns analytically and practically.

Tom Schuller argues that 'linearity critically constrains our ability to think creatively about alternative patterns analytically and practically' (1995: 5).

 has been intimately connected to a certain determination of writing, technics, and time, which has consolidated the matrix of capital and science.

Derrida argues that linearity has been intimately connected to a certain determination of writing, technics, and time, which has consolidated the matrix of capital and science. This formation begins to give way 'at the moment when linearity - which is not loss or absence but the repression of pluri-dimensional thought - relaxes its oppression because it begins to sterilize the technical and scientific economy it has long favored'.

is the repression of pluri-dimensional thought.

linearity, n.All

linearity