McLuhan
Summary
TLDRIn this discussion, the focus is on Marshall McLuhan's 1964 piece 'The Medium is the Message,' which explores how technology reshapes human affairs. McLuhan differentiates between the mechanistic paradigm, characterized by fragmentation and linearity, and the electric paradigm, which introduces immediacy and interconnectedness. He emphasizes the need for a new literacy to understand the impact of electric technology on society, suggesting that without this, we risk being controlled by it. The talk delves into how the shift from print to electronic media has altered our perception of time and space, and challenges us to adapt to the rapid pace of digital communications.
Takeaways
- 📚 Marshall McLuhan's central idea in 'The Medium is the Message' is that the impact of a medium can be understood through the changes it brings to human activities.
- 👨🏫 McLuhan criticizes the focus on content over the medium itself, suggesting that the medium's influence is inherent and does not rely on its content.
- 📈 The mechanistic paradigm, exemplified by the printing press, organizes society into fragments and linear sequences, fostering individualism and nationalism.
- 🌐 The electric paradigm, starting with the light bulb, challenges the mechanistic view by unifying time and space, leading to a more interconnected and immediate society.
- 🕰️ McLuhan discusses how the mechanistic paradigm views time as linear and fragmented, whereas the electric paradigm views time as simultaneous and interconnected.
- 🎥 The movie industry serves as an example of how the electric paradigm can represent time in a non-linear, fragmented yet interconnected way.
- 📖 McLuhan suggests that literacy in the mechanistic paradigm allows for detachment and understanding of how technology organizes society.
- 🌐 The electric paradigm's rapid pace and interconnectedness make it difficult for individuals to maintain the distance necessary for literacy as defined in the mechanistic era.
- 🔍 McLuhan anticipates a future (our present) where the lack of distance from electric technology leads to a society that is less capable of critically understanding its influence.
- 📝 The task set by McLuhan is to develop a new form of literacy and rationality that can make sense of the immediate and interconnected nature of electric technology.
Q & A
What is the main thesis of Marshall McLuhan's 'The Medium is the Message'?
-McLuhan's main thesis is that the medium itself, rather than the content it carries, is the message. He suggests that the way technology or technological paradigms reorganize human affairs is the true message they convey.
How does McLuhan define 'message' in the context of his work?
-McLuhan defines 'message' as the change of scale, pace, or pattern that a technology or a technological paradigm introduces into human affairs.
What are the two technological paradigms McLuhan discusses in his chapter?
-McLuhan discusses the mechanistic or mechanical paradigm and the electric paradigm, focusing on how they shape human activities and societal organization.
What does McLuhan mean when he suggests that technology is telling us what it does?
-McLuhan implies that the impact and influence of technology on human life are inherent in the technology itself, and we should look beyond the content it carries to understand its true effects.
Why does McLuhan criticize looking for content in technologies?
-McLuhan criticizes looking for content in technologies because it distracts from understanding the transformative effects that the medium itself has on society and human behavior.
What is the significance of the 'Gutenberg Galaxy' in McLuhan's analysis?
-The 'Gutenberg Galaxy' refers to the era dominated by the printing press. McLuhan suggests that this era gave birth to the individual and the nation due to the mass production and distribution of printed texts, which led to a new form of literacy and societal organization.
How does McLuhan describe the mechanistic Paradigm's effect on time and space?
-McLuhan describes the mechanistic Paradigm as fragmenting time and space into sequential and linear units, creating a sense of continuity and rational order in human activities.
What role does the movie technology play in McLuhan's view of the shift from the mechanistic to the electric Paradigm?
-Movies, for McLuhan, exemplify the shift from a sequential and mechanistic view of time to an electric view where time is experienced as immediate and interconnected, reflecting a move towards an organic and less linear understanding of experience.
How does McLuhan argue that the electric Paradigm differs from the mechanistic Paradigm?
-McLuhan argues that the electric Paradigm, starting with the invention of the light bulb, flattens time and unifies space, breaking down the mechanistic fragmentation and continuity, leading to a more immediate and interconnected experience of the world.
What challenge does McLuhan pose regarding our current technological literacy?
-McLuhan challenges that we have not yet adapted our literacy to the electric technology paradigm, which results in a lack of understanding of how current technologies organize and affect our lives.
What is the 'task' that McLuhan sets out for his readers?
-McLuhan's task for his readers is to develop a new form of literacy that makes sense in the age of electric technology, one that can understand and navigate the immediacy, interconnectedness, and different speeds of the digital age.
Outlines
📚 Understanding McLuhan's 'The Medium is the Message'
The speaker discusses the complexity of teaching Marshall McLuhan's work, particularly the concept that the medium itself is the message, and not its content. McLuhan suggests that technology or technological paradigms reorganize human affairs, and the best way to understand them is by observing how they change the scale, pace, or pattern of human activities. The speaker rearranges the lecture to focus on the mechanistic (mechanical) paradigm versus the electric paradigm, emphasizing that literacy in technology means being able to read what it tells us about its impact on society, rather than focusing on the content it carries.
🕰 The Impact of Technological Paradigms on Time Perception
The speaker explores how different technological paradigms shape our understanding of time. In the mechanistic paradigm, time is fragmented into chunks or blocks, which allows for a sense of continuity and linearity. Examples include the assembly line and the alphabet, where parts are assembled into a whole. The speaker contrasts this with the electric paradigm, where time is flattened and unified, as exemplified by the invention of the light bulb, which allows for work around the clock and challenges the day-night cycle that previously dictated our activities.
🎥 The Evolution of Time Perception from Mechanistic to Electric Paradigm
The speaker uses the example of movies to illustrate the shift from a mechanistic to an electric view of time. In movies, time is still fragmented but is no longer sequential; instead, it demonstrates immediate connections between different moments. This reflects a move from a linear, fragmented understanding of time to one that is more unified and interconnected. The electric paradigm, starting with the light bulb, challenges the mechanistic worldview by unifying time and space, which in turn affects our ability to read and understand the technological paradigm we are in.
🌐 The Challenge of Adapting to the Electric Technological Paradigm
The speaker discusses the challenges of adapting to the electric technological paradigm, where linear time has been flattened out and the mechanistic organization of society has been disrupted. McLuhan, writing in 1964, anticipates the current age of digital mass communications and the loss of distance that allows for reflection on technology's impact. The speaker suggests that without the literacy to understand the electric paradigm, technology gains autonomy over us, as we blindly follow its path. The task is to develop a new form of literacy and rationality that makes sense in an age of immediacy and interconnectedness.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Medium
💡Message
💡Technological Paradigm
💡Mechanistic Paradigm
💡Electric Paradigm
💡Literacy
💡Fragmentation
💡Printing Press
💡Time
💡Central Nervous System
Highlights
Difficulties in teaching Marshall McLuhan's 'The Medium is the Message' due to its complexity.
McLuhan's definition of 'message' as the change in scale, pace, or pattern introduced by technology.
The importance of understanding technology through its impact on organizing human affairs.
The mechanistic (mechanical) Paradigm versus the electric Paradigm in McLuhan's analysis.
Literacy in the context of technology means the ability to read what technology is telling us.
Critique of seeking content in technologies as missing the point.
The Talkville example illustrating literacy of the mechanistic technological Paradigm.
The printing press as a technology that organizes society and gives birth to the individual and the nation.
The surgeon analogy explaining the need for detachment to understand technology's impact.
Mechanistic technology's characteristic of fragmentation and its influence on society.
The assembly line as an example of mechanistic technology and its impact on labor and production.
The alphabet as an early mechanistic technology that fragments language into individual letters.
The concept of time as fragmented and linear, influenced by mechanistic technology.
The movie example demonstrating a shift from mechanistic to electric view of time.
Electric technology's role in flattening time and space, and unifying human experience.
The challenge of adapting literacy to electric technology in the digital age.
The need for a new form of rationality to understand the electric technological Paradigm.
Transcripts
hi
um we're going to talk about this
Marshall mcluhan piece now
um get the impression that it's a little
bit difficult for students I had a
difficult time teaching it this
afternoon
um so I rearranged the order of things
so you see me glancing this way it's
because I'm looking at another screen
which has some rearranged notes on it so
this uh chapter of a book from 1964
um is called the medium is the message
of the fact that the chapter you're
supposed to focus on
and
in large part what this is about is how
to read the message of a medium
so mcluhan defines the message on page
eight as the change of scale or Pace or
pattern that a technology or a
technological Paradigm introduces into
human affairs so mcluhan is suggesting
that the best way to understand
technology and technological paradigms
and their advancement
is through the way that technology or
technological paradigms reorganize or
organize and then reorganize human
Affairs human activities right
um
and here he's concerned with the
difference between two different
technological paradigms
um
and their messages
the mechanistic Paradigm
um or the mechanical Paradigm and the
electric Paradigm and this is about
literacy right the ability to read what
technology is telling us he's telling us
that the technology itself
is telling us what it does how it
affects us that we don't need to look to
content there are a few a few points
where he criticizes to look for content
and says to seek content in Technologies
is to miss the point right so we need to
see directly what what is being said to
us
so um yeah we're looking at the
difference between two technological
paradigms the mechanistic or mechanical
Paradigm and the electric Paradigm
um and the literacy that we can have of
them
um when he speaks of the talk Ville are
on pages 14 and 15. he's speaking about
someone who has a particularly Adept
literacy of the mechanistic
technological Paradigm at a particular
time right um so he's talking about the
age of the printing press and he talks
about how
um
the tuckvilles literacies familiarity is
understanding his ability to read the
mechanistic Paradigm in that moment
which uh is suggested as being dominated
by the printing press
allows him to take a distance
from that technology and see how this
technology is organizing our life so
those are some of the anecdotes that he
gives around to talk about earlier
in the essay I think it's on page five
he talks about a surgeon right and he
talks about how the surgeon is able to
take distance from the person that
they're working on
um
in order to be successful in their
surgery right because the idea is that
if they're viewing the patient
immediately in all of their personhood
that this is going to you know cause
maybe nervousness or fear or different
forms of empathy and emotion that could
get in the way of the surgery so we
through literacy
um are able to take distance from the
things that we do
um so back to the printing press for a
second just to mention like what the
talk fill is literate of it's uh you
know this the society that's in Europe
it's becoming dominated by the
repetition of
printed texts in a way that's never done
before and he says that this gives birth
to uh
this gives birth to both the individual
and the nation and some reasons for that
might be that um for the first time the
same thing is being printed on mass
scale and the individual without
mediator becomes the reader right
um printed newspaper means everyone gets
the news it doesn't come by Word of
Mouth it doesn't come from government
officials it's not a word of God coming
through the priests right
printed press language directed at us in
repetition in some sense he's saying
leads to our idea of ourselves as as
individuals in the way that's associated
with liberalism as a
socioeconomic Paradigm and he also says
nation states and and uh just quickly
there
you know um
at a certain point in time you have the
Holy Roman Empire and then suddenly you
have the emergence of a state like
Germany
you have all of these people in what's
today Germany speaking different
dialects or different variations of a
similar language right and so the
printing press um
requires some codification of that
language right so that everyone can read
it right so it's coming out of dialect
and into a formal language that we
eventually come to know as German and
this corresponds to the idea of
german-ness right in German as a nation
so that's just some places that he does
this or uses this um
I thought the taco was a good example of
what literacy means here so literacy of
the technological medium that organizes
society allows for a certain distance
from The Medium itself and there's
another example I'll give you
um or close the passage here on Taco
Bell he says the talk bill was a highly
literate Aristocrat who was able to be
detached from the values and assumptions
of topography
that is why he alone understood the
grammar of topography
and it is only on those terms standing
aside from any structure or medium that
its principles and lines of force can be
discerned so we need this literacy in
order to take distance in order to see
how this technology is affecting the way
that we organize ourselves
so let's talk a little bit more about
the mechanistic Paradigm this is the
Paradigm that we were in for a long time
and that um in some sense uh we still
have a literacy
um
mcluhan is arguing that we still have a
literacy based in or rooted in the
mechanistic Paradigm and the part of the
problem part of the dissonance in
society is that we haven't adapted our
literacy
um to Electric technology right
technology that starts with the light
bulb and leads all the way to the sort
of mass communications technology that
we have today so
um mechanistic the mechanistic or
mechanical Paradigm of Technology one
major thing is fragmentation
it chops bits up chops things up into
bits and parts a good example of
uh
late technology associated with this
would be the four disassembly line right
and if you don't know what that is
assembly line you know the production of
a car is coming through and each person
is doing a part and when they're
finished with that part it goes on so we
have a compartmentalization of the
different labor processes that go on
with making a car or a vehicle or
something like that so that's that's the
forest that's how Ford is some sort of
uh
communicates this fragmentation in terms
of a message that mcloone is talking
about
we can also talk about and I do think
that mcluhan has this in mind
um
mechanistic Technologies in some sense
going all the way back to things like
the alphabet
you have individual letters that can be
grouped together into words they can be
grouped together via grammar into
meaningful sentences and then so on and
so forth and longer and longer alone but
that development of grammar
to string words together is very
important for organization and the type
of literacy that's associated with the
mechanistic or mechanical
technological paradigm
but let's take another example
um which is time
we understand time and sort of chunks or
blocks whether it's a really really
small one like a second a minute hours
or days right
um
you know you might spend two hours a day
working on schoolwork you might spend
six or eight or ten hours a day working
in some other capacity you might spend
one hour a day at the gym things like
this you know or we break down our days
into these parts and it's only because
we break down our days into these parts
or we break time down
into these fragments you know 12 noon
1300 hours 1400 hours 1500 hours 1600
hours Seventeen hundred dollars
and so on and so forth It's only because
these things are fragmented or
compartmentalized in this way that we
have a sense of continuity
because there can't be continuity
amongst things that are not fragmented
right if something was a whole uniform
hole to begin with there's no need for
continuity it's just already flat so in
fragmenting things we we have continuity
and linearity and that's the way that we
understand time right as a continuous
process made up of bits this goes all
the way back to Aristotle who
understands times in terms of points on
a line right before and after the
present point
and we still understand time and and
organize our time and experience time um
based on this linear
structure that comes from fragmentation
and the argument would be that our
experience of space functions similarly
um
so let's talk about the movie example
give me a second to grab it
all right the movie example uh he uses
the movie as an as an example of the
technology here
um to sort of Mark uh
a shift between the mechanistic view of
time and the electric view of time so he
says here on page 12 he says
mechanization was never so vividly
fragmented or sequential
as in the birth of movies
the moment that translated us Beyond
mechanism into the world of growth and
organic interrelation the movie by Shear
speed by Shear speeding up the
mechanical carried us from the world of
sequence and connections into the world
of creative configuration and structure
so what's the difference here we're
still working with fragments chunks but
we're no longer looking at um
this type of particular ordering right
this uh sequential ordering that I was
talking about before with hours and days
when we see move when we watch movies we
have these uh pockets of time that are
displayed to us and then there's a cut
scene and then we see some other time
and we understand the connections
between these things so what we have
um
in movies is a demonstration of time a
time which is still fragmented in a way
but which traverses the linearity right
sometimes you have a movie that starts
um way in the past and that's the first
opening scene and then it cuts
immediately
um to Something in the present
and that
cut what's happening there is that we're
meant to see that actually the moment in
the distant past and the moment in the
present are immediately connected right
so they they it traverses the connection
the time is traversing all this linear
time in between and showing us immediate
connection
um so we're starting to see
um
time conceived through technology in a
different way with the movie that's the
reason that he uses this example
so
mcluhan sees this this way in which our
activity and our understanding and
experience of the world is organized by
a fragmentation via bits that can be
strung together as belonging to a
rational worldview
um this starts to be broken down already
with the invention of the light bulb
right because what's the what changes
suddenly
night time isn't that big of a deal
right so so the sort of natural
fragmentation of time day and night
um which you may say led to this sort of
grammar that we had with the mechanistic
worldview and the the mechanical
technological Paradigm
um this is shattered with the light bulb
because now we can work all through the
night right
um night and day doesn't matter and so
this
of Aristotelian time points of now
on a linear scale mcloone is saying this
is flattened out time is flattened out
it's no longer sequential it's no longer
um fragmented it's flat and unified
electricity unifies time
and
that's in part I think why he refers to
the central nervous system in the
introductory few pages there
the central nervous system receives and
coordinates stimuli and information at a
very fast speed right a speed that's um
difficult for us to comprehend with the
mechanistic worldview but um
with electric technology he's saying
that all of these activities the
organization of information and stimuli
at that speed are are are externalized
out into the world and so with the
electric light it flattens time and
space destroys the distance created in
the mechanistic Paradigm and it also
destroys our ability to read
the technological Paradigm that we're in
because the technological Paradigm that
we are in is no longer organizing Us in
this mechanistic way
proof and point that linear time has
been sort of flattened out already By
the Light Bulb quite some time ago
um so we move he says from a rational
um back into an irrational
um worldview
we were the mechanistic technological
Paradigm allowed for irrational ordering
of society and now we have an irrational
ordering of society
um
and this is where the problem lies right
he's anticipating in 1964 the age that
we're in now this distance that allows
us to take a you know a step away from
action as reaction that's no longer
that's no longer there and I think a
good example of that would be
he says we have no choice but to
participate in everything
um and a good example of that would be
the way that information is being
processed all the time by algorithms you
know I have Breakneck speed and this is
uh
now what I wanted to say is that our
actions are being processed
technologically digitally
um and being brought into
interrelation with
um other things uh without our doing it
right all of this this is why he says
that
um the barrier between individual and
society and societies globally has
broken down all of this stuff is
crossing paths all at once
um but rather than get into
specific examples on my behalf I think
that
you should because we'll do an
assignment about this you should think
about
um
how what he's talking about this shift
from the mechanistic or the mechanical
Paradigm into the electrical Paradigm or
the electric Paradigm how we experience
that today in the age of digital mass
communications
um
mcluhan's suggestion is that in 1964
um we don't have the distance from this
technology to see how it's ordering Our
Lives to see how it's
organizing the sphere of human activity
um
and then not having that literacy and
awareness it gives the technology almost
a certain autonomy over us right because
we're sort of blindly following
the content of the message so to speak
um or we're sort of blindly following
the path set out by the technology
without understanding what it is
um and so the task that he sets out here
is that we need to adapt a form of
literacy which makes sense in the age of
electric technology
yeah different speeds
flat interrelation immediacy
we need to come to terms with this
immediacy in order to develop what I
assume would be a new form of
rationality
so uh
that's your task good luck
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