Unfortunately, both oral and written culture are dying. They are being driven out, in a brute, vulgar-Darwinist manner, by the electronic cultures.
Humans are clever and a thousand years is a long time.
In the meanwhile the electronic media will remain utterly passive experiences, replacing imagination and intellect with the ability to swallow other people's illusions raw. In the meanwhile, we suckle at, in the words of the poet, the glass teat. In the meanwhile, there are no more citizens, no more poets, no more nomads, but only drones, tools, schemers. In the meanwhile, Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness, and mere oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. The only exceptions to this that I can see are computers, more especially computer networks.