A tribute to and a lament for Marshall McLuhan. Five days a week, Tuesday through Saturday, I present one of McLuhan’s observations and talk about its relevance today. 300 ideas. 300 days. 300 posts.
Archive for May, 2010
Did you try it?
Marshall McLuhan (June 18, 1974, age 62). Well, did you?
Why is it that people insist that the study of media is difficult. All you have to do is look around you. Yesterday I suggested you look at Xeroxing. Well, did you?
Me (May 2010, age 57). Â What about another artifact?
The cell phone, of course, is still having affects on us and our other artifacts. Yesterday I went past the shattered remains of four telephone booths in a large public building in downtown Montreal. Each one had been killed by the cell phone. Other effects of the cell phone are: we are no longer tied to our desks, being out of touch is no longer easy to happen, charging a cell phone is now one of our daily tasks.
One more time – don’t worry about being profound – how are the artifacts about you changing your life and the artifacts about them?
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading for this post
Letters of Marshall McLuhan, 1987, pp. 500.
Try it sometime.
Marshall McLuhan (June 18, 1974, age 62).  Don’t be shy.
I just got back from England, where my oldest son Eric was married. I was delighted to run into Hugh and Winifred Lane at the wedding. Hugh and I were students together at Cambridge in the 1930s. I was telling them about my work which concerns the effects of technologies on human society and psyche. You may be wondering how one goes about identifying those effects. The answer is simply to ask yourself about any item around you: What it is doing to its users and to other artifacts? For example to study the effects of Xeroxing make an inventory of the changes Xeroxing has had on your life.
Me (May 2010, age 57). You as a student of media
I remember one of my professors at the University of Toronto, John Dales, saying that students spent too much time photocoping and not enough time reading. By photocoping – he insisted – all we were doing was delaying the act of reading. Why not cut out the middle man and read it? Another way to look at it is that we were too caught up in publishing to bother about reading.
How are the artifacts about you changing your life and the artifacts about them?
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Cordially, Marshall and Me
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Reading for this post
Letters of Marshall McLuhan, 1987, pp. 500.
Coincidence.
Marshall McLuhan (April 11, 1974, age 62). Â Bad vibes?
You wouldn’t believe it. Two months ago, when our youngest daughter Elizabeth was about to be married and the house was full of guests, the water main burst. Now, just as the water main is being replaced at home and the lawn is completely dug up, we’ve had to replace the water main at the Coach House – which as you know is my office at Toronto University and the Center for Culture and Technology. What’s next? Thank God I don’t have a cottage.
Me (May 2010, age 57). Coincidence?
Two water mains in the same year? Bad luck? Bad vibes? Coincidence? Certainly uncomfortable. Someone once told me that when they lived in Kingston (Ontario) they lived on Montreal Road, but when they moved to Montreal (Quebec) they wound up living on Kingston Road.
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What coincidences – comfortable or uncomfortable – come to mind for you?
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Cordially, Marshall and Me
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Reading for this post
Letters of Marshall McLuhan, 1987, pp. 490, 491, and 496.
How to deal with hecklers.
Marshall McLuhan (June 13, 1974, age 62). Â For what it is worth
Hecklers are easily dealt with. The heckler’s goal is “to annoy or confuse a speaker by interrupting with questions or taunts.” As I was telling Pierre Trudeau here are my two favourite ploys. Depending on your mood you can: (1) invite them to come to the microphone and address the audience; or (2) look at them quizzically and ask them, “You mean my fallacies are all wrong?” Very few hecklers are prepared to deal with either approach. [for more on heckling]
Me (May 2010, age 57)Â Â I wonder
Marshall McLuhan might have found these effective strategies .  I doubt that Pierre Trudeau would have found them helpful. But then …
What are the best ways of dealing with hecklers?
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading for this post
Letters of Marshall McLuhan, 1987, pp. 499.
What don’t you know?
Marshall McLuhan (January 25, 1973, age 61). That’s my favourite question.
Why is it that people are so interested in what they know? My strategy is always to explore my ignorance, the things I don’t know.
Me (May 2010, age 57).  A big territory.
Once you start exploring your ignorance you will find – at least I have found it so – that it’s a big territory. If you are having trouble discovering things you’re ignorant of take any subject on which you think you know something and ask yourself “How do I know that?” (This question according to Deirdre McCloskey was a favourite of economics Nobel laureate Milton Friedman. See “this” on her web site.)
Experiment. Try this question when other people start telling you things about politics, economics or society and see what happens. Let us know what happens.
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading for this post
Letters of Marshall McLuhan, 1987, pp. 464.
The reading public no longer exists.
Marshall McLuhan (January 12, 1973, age 61). Thousands of reading publics exist
When I was at Cambridge, in the 1930s, the library of the English School maintained displays of a small number of relevant books covering a variety of different fields. Looking over the shelves I came away with the distinct idea that this was what you needed to know to know what was happening in history, poetry, or any other field. Today however such an impression is an impossibility. So much is being published – in America alone 39,000 books are published every year - there cannot be a reading public only publics. We read what we will and except for very modest area of overlap our reading separates us from one another.
Me (May 2010, age 57).  Thousands have become millions.
Every book club is a reading public. Each blog has its reading public, some large, most small.
What are the implications? Are programs like “Canada Reads” necessary to maintain a sense of community?
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading for this post
Letters of Marshall McLuhan, 1987, pp. 462.
Deborah Hinton‘s post @ Communication Matters
Do you go outside to be alone?
Marshall McLuhan (March 10, 1972, age 60). You do if you’re American.
Remarkably, Americans go outside to be alone, while Brits go outside to be with others. Americans find privacy in cars, restaurants and bowling alleys. Brits find community in walks, coffee houses, and sporting events.
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Me (May 2010, age 57).  Surely a curious thing?
This is an idea that McLuhan found extremely interesting. And one he kept returning to and repeating as a precept beyond dispute. In 2000 Robert Putnam published Bowling Alone, a best seller that assembled much evidence supporting the idea that Americans in the last quarter of the 2oth century have become “increasingly disconnected from family, friends, neighbours, and … democratic structures.”   Also interesting is that among other things Putnam attributes this growing disconnection to television. This then would appear to be one of those curious ideas that McLuhan was onto much in advance of everybody else.
Do you go outside to be alone?
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Cordially, Marshall and Me
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Reading for this post
Letters of Marshall McLuhan, 1987, pp. 452.