Culture
Look to the media
Marshall McLuhan (February 27, 1962, age 50). TV!
Every family’s got a drop-out, magazine’s like Life are in trouble, the auto industry is veering out of control, the textbook industry and our schools are being completely overhauled. Why do so few people see that these things and a great many more are directly attributable to the impact of TV!
TV is not the first medium to have entirely reshaped society and it will not be the last. But in many ways it is the most obvious. The book escaped me for years. I caught on to TV in seconds.
Me (February, 2010, age 57). What if he’s right?
Marshall McLuhan’s observation about TV suggests the connection between the rise of the internet and the decay of newspapers.
Extra! Extra! Read all about it! In Atlanta where I was early last month for a conference, the 5 star hotel I stayed in (thanks to the special deal the American Economic Association was able to arrange for its members) did not supply newspapers for its guests, as the big hotels do in Toronto. Their thinking being, I imagine that their guests would rather be on-line or in front of the TV. In Montreal the English language newspaper The Gazette is given away outside metro stations to commuters in the mornings and in the afternoons, but few appear to want to take a paper. Increasingly, the front page of the Gazette has become a showcase for advertisements, colour pictures and teasers about blogs and on-line stories. Some days, like last Monday, the lead story no longer leads on the front page.
The French seem to be lagging in the abandonment of the newspaper. The leading intellectual newspaper here is called Le Devoir. What English language daily would call itself Homework?
Are you more likely to get your news from TV, on-line, or from a newspaper? When the newspaper disappears, where will the radio morning shows get their stories?
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading for this post
The Montreal Gazette, February 1, 2010.
Lucky, I’m so lucky
Marshall McLuhan (December 1968, age 57). I’ve got this thing about the number 3.
My new agent Matie Molinaro is working out splendidly. You wouldn’t believe the liberties people were taking with my radio interviews and TV and film appearances. She is making sure my good name is protected and my wish is her delight. An arrangement in which I assure you I delight. For instance, Matie didn’t bat an eye when I asked her to make sure that when she enrolled me in ACTRA that my membership number was divisible by three. You see, I am a firm believer that the number 3 and numbers divisible by three are lucky. If they’re not then why am I so lucky?
Me (January 2010, age 57). The rule of 3.
There is no doubt that Marshall McLuhan believed that the number 3 and numbers divisible by 3 are lucky. He arranged his life to surround himself with these lucky numbers. For example, he had 6 children, the Coach House, the home of his Centre for Culture and Technology was at 39A Queen’s Park Crescent East, and there are 33 chapters in his best selling Understanding Media. Not surprisingly, his rule for determining whether a book is worth reading is to peruse page 69 – a number divisible by 3 both in whole and in its parts. If that page is enlightening then the book is worth reading.
Superstitions are notoriously difficult to shake. If 3 and numbers divisible by 3 are so lucky, and Marshall McLuhan surrounded himself with them, then you might well ask: Why was he so unlucky when it came to his health, suffering from repeated strokes, a brain tumor, and, in the last 18 months (a number divisible by 3) of his life, aphasia? The answer, of course, is that but for the presence of 3 things would have been much worse.
How superstitious are you? If you are superstitious how much effort do you make to insure the Gods are on your side? Is it just a coincidence that this blog closes with 3 questions?
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading for this post
Matie Armstrong Molinaro. “Marshalling McLuhan,” in Marshall McLuhan: The Man and His Message. Edited by George Sanderson and Frank Macdonald. Golden, Colorado: Fulcrum, 1989, pp. 81-88.
Trying to sell Snow to sell the Galaxy
Marshall McLuhan (February 1, 1962, age 50). C.P. Snow’s the bloke!
My editor at U of Toronto press, a canny Scot, came up with a great idea for the dust jacket testimonial for The Gutenberg Galaxy of which I hope to see the page proofs in the coming weeks. We will get C.P. Snow – Sir Charles now – to write something complimentary. Turns out he, and Lady Snow, met Walter Ong – my former student – at Wesleyan University and they had a meeting of minds. How delightfully serendipitous are the ways of fate. As you may know we are both Cambridge men and individually represent the opposite divides of the Two Cultures he has banged on about to great effect and acclaim. The Gutenberg Galaxy is at heart about the making of the two cultures; two being one more than there was before the advent of printing. I hope he agrees. It will certainly make a world of difference to the sales of good old Galaxy if we can get the author of the Two Cultures to go to bat for me. Must go, I have a letter to write.
Me (January 2010, age 57). I don’t think Snow had a hard time saying no.
C.P. Snow did not write a phrase for the dust jacket of the Galaxy. As far as I have been able to learn he did not reply to McLuhan’s letter. In that letter McLuhan writes, somewhat obsequiously, “The Gutenberg Galaxy … undertakes, almost as a sequel to your Two Cultures, to explain the historical divergence of these two cultures, both before and since Gutenberg. I dreamed, therefore, of seeing a phrase of yours on the jacket.”
If Sir Charles bothered to read the page proofs of The Gutenberg Galaxy – assuming that McLuhan actually went to the trouble and expense of sending them to him as he promised in his letter - it is difficult to believe that Snow would have seen himself as a natural dust jacket testimonial writer for the book. The first two opening sentences alone I suspect would have had this plain speaking Yorkshire man shaking his head: “The present volume is in many respects complementary to The Singer of Tales by Albert B. Lord. Professor Lord has continued the work of Milman Parry, whose Homeric studies led him to consider how oral and written poetry naturally followed diverse patterns and functions.”
McLuhan might have found it crystal clear that Snow’s Two Cultures correspond to Lord and Parry’s “oral” and “written” “patterns and functions,” but I don’t think Snow would have found it either obvious or enlightening.
What was McLuhan thinking? That, of course, C. P. Snow would want to be a part of the Marshall McLuhan fan club? What should he have done differently? (I can think of quite a few things. For example I imagine the last thing Snow would have wanted was to see the page proofs to the Galaxy.) Perhaps the real lesson of this story is that McLuhan was at this time totally consumed with the ideas he was creating. What do you think?
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading for this post
Letters of Marshall McLuhan, 1987, pp. 282-284.
Merry Xmas, Professor McLuhan!
Marshall McLuhan (December, 1947, age 36). Thank God it’s Xmas
Our fourth child, Stephanie, was born in October, Eric is only now just recovering from a bout with the flu, and I can’t hire anyone to help Corinne with the work around the house for less than my salary, which is the princely sum of $4,200. Still Corinne is glowing and while I find marking end Xmas exams tiresome, you know me, tireless. At present, I have three books on the go: one on Eliot and two on popular culture, Guide to Chaos and Typhon in America.
Me (December 2009, age 57). I agree
It is time to leave Professor McLuhan to his household troubles and work on his books, and meditate on the 12 days of Christmas a period which as McLuhan knew marked the beginning of the year from the 7th century through to the 13th. I will take a short break myself and make my next post on January 7th.
Before I do a few thoughts on the two books on popular culture McLuhan mentions above which eventually became one: The Mechanical Bride, his first book. Bride has presented a bit of a problem for students of McLuhan. Coming before his discovery of media it is far more accessible than his later books, and deals with a subject that would continue to fascinate McLuhan as a student of media, comics and advertising, but in a very different way. Bride looks at comics and advertising for what they reveal about American culture and its values, and in particular for what they reveal about what McLuhan believes is wrong with American culture. For example, Dagwood in the Blondie comic strip is a wimp and represents everything that is wrong with American men: in short they are not real men. And many things readers of the later McLuhan will find familiar are there: for example, Poe’s sailor caught in the maelstrom who escapes through understanding his situation, the idea that the book is not about the subjects or objects, or exhibits it discusses – advertisements and comics – but rather what they reveal about something else, American values and ways of living, a mosaic presentation in which the chapters can be read in any order. Yet it is not the McLuhan that he will come to be. He has not yet discovered his grand theme – the effects media have had on mankind because of the way they work rather than what they contain. Instead what we find is many familiar things being used in an unfamiliar way. Here is McLuhan the literary critic critiquing comics and advertising through close reading of their contents in ways he had learned at Cambridge. For example, in the chapter titled “Horse Opera and Soap Opera” he observes that Westerns (the B movies also known as dusters and oaters) have much to teach us about the importance of the frontier, business, action, the office, and men in American culture while it is to soap opera that you must go to learn about the mainstream, society, feelings, the home, and women. All of which is interesting but not important in the way the later McLuhan’s observation about media are important. Because if you then say about any observation in Bride “Interesting, but so what?” The answer more often than not is, “not much.”
In lieu of a question a greeting: Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading for this post
Letters of Marshall McLuhan, 1987, p. 190-191.
More on the Critics!
Marshall McLuhan (June 2, 1960, age 48). There’s no such thing as bad advertizing?
Yesterday I told you what Robert Fulford had to say about me in Maclean’s. I must say the man really does not get me. He is hung up as teenagers say on Euclidian space. It blinds him to the truth of the medium is the message. He says I’m repetitious. But I have to keep repeating myself because he does not get it. That is to say getting it is something he does not get. Get it?
Me (December 2009, age 57). More critiquing of the critics
Let us look now at the criticisms that can be found in the blurbs printed on the covers and dust jackets of the 4 copies of Understanding Media that I have on my McLuhan book shelf. There is more than a hint of criticism to be found there because McLuhan’s publishers knew controversy sells books.
Second printing, October, 1966, Signet Book, new American Library of Canada: “Understanding Media is the book that’s making history and hysteria- with its radical view of the effects of electronic communications upon man and the twentieth century. Marshall McLuhan is the new spokesman of the electronic age- the oracle whose revolutionary ideas have blasted an explosion of debate from academy to coffee house. [The publisher] “His critics are infuriated by his ideas ….” Richard Schickel, Harper’s.
Third printing, 1968, McGraw Hill, hard cover: “An infuriating book.” Commonweal.
First MIT Press edition, 1994, soft cover: “McLuhan’s theories continue to challenge our sensibilities and our assumptions about how and what we communicate. … There has been a notable resurgence of interest in McLuhan’s work in the last few years …. Lewis H. Lapham revaluates McLuhan’s work in the light of the technological as well as the political and social changes that have occurred in the last part of this century.”
Critical edition, Ginko Press, hard cover, 2003: “Infuriating, brilliant and incoherent. “ Commonweal Review. “The medium is not the message.” Umberto Eco.
There is a recurrent idea in the blurbs. People are “infuriated” by the book. Why? Among other things Robert Fulford, whose criticism of McLuhan in Maclean’s set off this series of blogs on the criticism of Marshall McLuhan, presumably would say his arrogance is infuriating. (To be continued)
Is there anything in Understanding Media that you find infuriating? Tell me what it is and why it is infuriating.
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading for the is post
Letters of Marshall McLuhan, 1987, p. 300.
More on education at high speed
Marshall McLuhan (February 1960, age 48). The adolescent has been replaced by the teenager
Teachers are failing to teach because they insist on treating teenagers as if they were adolescents. (See Edgar Friedenberg’s fine book The Vanishing Adolescent.) Adolescent means the stage between childhood and adulthood. That stage no longer exists. Electronic media have abolished the adolescent. What we are left with is the teenager. An adult aged 13 to 19. I should know, several of them are underfoot at home. To paraphrase the familiar anecdote, take my teenager, please.
Me (December 2009, age 57). McLuhan underestimated the size of the problem
In The Disappearance of Childhood, Neil Postman argued that the electronic age has not only abolished adolescence it has robbed children of a great deal of their childhood. In the middle ages children were treated as adults as soon as they could speak with fluency, say, age 6 to 8. The print revolution caused childhood to be extended and adolescence added on because of the extra demands learning to read placed on young people in addition to learning to speak. Today, Postman argues electric media have undone the work the print revolution did.
What does this mean for the understanding of schooling? Basically, the problems of the teenager – disaffection and disengagement with traditional class room teaching, dropping out, illiteracy - will be found increasingly among older children.
Why do people keep on insisting that children and teenagers be book-learned in the age of digital and social media? You can try to keep twitter out the classroom but can you keep the classroom out of twitter?
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading for this post
Neil Postman. The End of Education: Redefining the value of school. New York: Vintage Books, 1995; 1996.
Speed up!
Marshall McLuhan (May 1959, age 47). Producers are now consumers
I just got back from Winnipeg. Didn’t have time to visit my first alma mater, The University of Manitoba, as I was too busy informing the Winnipeg Ad and Sales Club about the new business rules in our electronic age. Here’s the short version, everything is moving so fast in our electric age that the only way to get ahead is to speed up. The alternative is obliteration. Winnipeg was shaking its head in collective dumbfoundment. Can’t really blame them. Looking around on the corner of Portage and Main, I’d be tempted to draw the conclusion that the world is slowing down not speeding up! Sometimes not seeing is believing.
Me (December 2009, age 57). Marshall McLuhan on how to speed up
The great speed the business world is moving at is an idea that everyone in business today agrees with and without hesitation. Even, I would hazard a guess in Winnipeg. Marshall McLuhan’s ideas about speed are still worth thinking about today not because McLuhan offers a brilliant solution as to how to live at hyper speed. His solution is to trade places with your complement. Whatever role you perform there is a complement. For example the complement of teacher is student. The complement of producer is consumer. The complement of writer is reader. By switching roles you are in effect moving at very high speed. For example, by becoming consumers, producers are able to anticipate shifts in demand.
How fast does your life move relative to your parents and grandparents? What do you do to deal with the speed of change at which you live? What is your complement? Can you put yourself in the position of your complement?
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading for this post
Letters of Marshall McLuhan, 1987, pp. 252-255.
Speed Limits, Canadian Centre for Architecture, 20 May to 8 November 2009
The power of the artist
Marshall McLuhan (Summer 1968, age 57). You can give Mailer a compliment but he hasn’t the wit to accept it
That chat I had with Norman Mailer on the CBC’s TV program, “The Summer Way,” is still on my mind, largely because despite the title of the program, “Meeting of Minds,” there was so little meeting of minds. Here’s how it went. I’d make an observation. (Violence is necessary to the formation of identity.) He’d say he didn’t like it. So I made another observation, (the new electronic environment has abolished nature) and he’d say he didn’t like that and so it went. I don’t have a problem with his liking or not liking my ideas. But I don’t think liking or not liking is productive. In fact I’m convinced it’s counter-productive. Liking and not liking, which is so often masked as truth-seeking interferes as I said yesterday with just observation of the world.
I decided to try a new tactic. Norman, I said, you will be delighted with this – the artist is the only one who is able to face the present and see it for what it is. He alone has the ability to tell us what is happening. Poor Mailer was not delighted.
Me (December 2009, age 57). Marshall McLuhan: Artist or scientist?
At this point, the moderator of the meeting, Ken Lefolii, stepped in and asked McLuhan whether he thought of himself as an artist or a scientist. McLuhan’s answer was no, he didn’t think of himself as an artist or a scientist. He said he rejected these categories as unhelpful, fragmenting, nineteenth century devices, and in particular he implied they were not helpful for thinking about him as an observer of the unfolding electric 20th century world. McLuhan’s answer then in effect was “I refuse to be lumped in a category.”
But of those two boxes, artist and scientist, he seems to fit most easily into the artist category. Scientists he said are in the matching game. Matching ideas about the world with evidence of the world. Artists are in the breakthrough game. Looking for new patterns in the world. McLuhan tries his hand at the matching game in his observations about media. For example, radio is visual, TV is tactile and children who watch TV look at the world from an average distance of 4’6”and therefore are hunters not readers. But this science is not the science you met in High School. The matching is often difficult to separate from assertion.
What category would you place yourself? Artist or scientist? What about the people closest to you? Family, friends, colleagues? Should businesses be in the matching game or the breakthrough game?
Cordially, Marshall and Me