Does Writing Have a Future? (Flusser’s book)

Flusser’s voice sounds plaintive in this book.  His own attachment to writing seems to intensify as he describes a contemporary weakening, thinning of  “historical consciousness,” that consciousness that writing created and always sustained. For in the context of “new media” — from photography on through film, video, sound recording, and digital synthesis, the discipline of putting vague thoughts “in order,” forcing them into lines of letters flowing in one direction, from the past into the future, from cause to effect, is losing its hold on us .

I teach writing (well, actually history and theory)  in an art college.  That is, I effectively ask students who identify themselves as visual thinkers to write.  I find that art students almost always respect what other students would call “archaic” media — painting, drawing, carving, lithography, etc.  I think this may be coming to include writing.