mcluhan

(i think that recaps what nick said actually: eg is "global village" good or bad? i grew up in a village and moved away — what happens when the village is so all-encompassing i can't move away)

an eastern perspective

McLuhan had some good ideas. Problem was, academically speaking, that most of his stuff was 80% brand new and had no basis in academic thought before he came out with it. McLuhan was really popular in academic circles when he first started introducing theories. Then came a backlash about the newness of his theories and he was denounced. Then came the Internet and everyone loved him again. I'm not sure how academics feel about him now.

I found "Mechanical Bride" really interesting, when he's talking about how pictures of women that were cropped to only show legs were making men objectify women.

In conclusion, don't hate on Kentucky cockfarmer.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/amoeba/21986550/

One of the things I like about McLuhan but which is also confusing about him is that he does sometimes give off the impression that he's all in favour of things like the global village--especially in his '60s writing, where he seems to be feeding a little bit off his pop-cult status (rightly so, and as with the Beatles, I'd contend that his fame and notoriety ultimately made him a better critic/artist/whatever, made him probe deeper). But when you read him in interviews, particularly in those rare occasions when he'll actually reveal something about his own personal feelings (an act he claimed to deplore) about electronic media, global village, etc., he actually seems to say the opposite, and in fact (read "The Letters of Marshall McLuhan" or Phillip Marchand's excellent bio), he even compares electronic media to the anti-christ!

just saw 'McLuhan's Wake'. and this fact really struck me. his tone of voice, his enthusiasm, there's so much eagerness conveyed as his brain skyrockets from idea to idea. and yet, the point in the film where he spells it out (I'm paraphrasing): 'make no mistake. I think that the world I am taking pains to describe this accurately is a nightmare.'

recently at a party I discovered 'The Medium and the Light' on a bookshelf, a collection of all the interviews in which he goes into detail on his young conversion to devout Catholicism. and I was pretty stunned that I had read his work fairly widely and yet never gleaned that about him -- it's less a physical Unified Field Theory he's going for than a straight up doctrine. I have to buy that book; that party was not the best environment in which to absorb too much of that thinking but it's fairly key

http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/stories_of_faith_and_character/cs0523.htm

All sorts of stuff has been going on in Toronto for his centenary:

http://www.mcluhan100.ca/

I started university at St. Michael's College (where he taught) in September '79, same month he had his stroke.

'make no mistake. I think that the world I am taking pains to describe this accurately is a nightmare.'

― Milton Parker, Tuesday, July 26, 2011 8:01 PM (3 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
will have to see mcluhan's wake now!