Communications
Marriage: Youâve got to work at it
Me (September, 2010, age 58). And now for something completely different.
Marriage is a subject people donât typically turn to Marshall McLuhan for insight or advice. But when you think about it, itâs not a bad idea. After all, he was married for 41 years. He and his wife Corinne had six children. By all accounts their marriage was a success.
For those of you looking for Mr. or Mrs. Right, hereâs what Marshall had to say about the secret to a great marriage, when he was interviewed by Jane Howard for a close up article she wrote about him in Life Magazine in February 1965. (By the way I found my Mrs. Right in 1976.)
Marshall McLuhan (February 25, 1965, age 54). Donât play the match game.
âCorinne, what did I say to that journalist, Jane Howard, about marriage? Was I for it or against it?â
âDonât be silly Marshall, of course you were for it. Hereâs exactly what you said. Itâs right here in this weekâs issue of Life.â
Like any other relationship marriage must be remade by the contracting parties every day. Itâs a terrible illusion in peopleâs lives that if they donât match each other exactly, they ought to drop everything and split up. They donât consider the possibility of making as an alternative to matching. Any relationship can be a depth relationship, if you try and make it so. People used to say, âWell Iâm married, thatâs that, put up or shut upâ â which I happen to think is a very good idea. But now they get divorced â they drop out of marriage for the same reason they drop out of school, because theyâre looking for a depth relationship, a profound role.
âNot bad eh?â
âNot bad at all, Marshall, not bad at all.â
Â
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Â
Reading
Jane Howard, âOracle of the Electric Age,â Life Magazine, 25 February 1965, p. 99.
Guess if you can.
Me (September, 2010, age 58). Who can make sense of âŚ
Rock ânâ Roll kids, the surfers, and the hippies?
Swingers, poets, and artists?
New York City, Southern California, and Canada?
Topless restaurants, Playboy, and silicon breasts?
Sputnik, the DEW-Line, and the Cold War?
Suburbs, Watts, and Vietnam?
Howl, Mad magazine, and Dyslexia?
Teen age and Executive Drop Outs?
Computers and the mini skirt?
The sixties?
Marshall McLuhan (1964, age 53). Me.
Youâre going to kick yourself when I tell you. In a word â television.
Â
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Â
Reading
Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media, 1964i.
Still more suggestions for new Chapters of Understanding Media
Marshall McLuhan (August 2010, age 99). Is this funny?
Again? More joke titles for new chapters for Understanding Media? Now youâve gone too far.
Me (September, 2010, age 58). You tell me.
Here are even more tongue-in-cheek suggestions for new chapters for Understanding Media:
Coronation Street:Â Earâs to the Medium
Girdle:Â Itâs a Cinch
White Out:Â A Step Backwards?
The Foreman Grill:Â Reversal of a Hot Medium
Telemarketing: Dollars and Sense
Financial Fraud:Â Give and Take?
Robin Hood: The Medieval Poor Manâs Credit Card
Megaphone:Â Old Yeller
White Wall Tires:Â Extensions of Spats
Flatulence:Â Wind at Your Back
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading
Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media, 1964, pp. xi – xiii.
More suggestions for new Chapters for Understanding Media
Marshall McLuhan (August 2010, age 99). Is this funny?
Joke titles for new chapters for Understanding Media? Swift said, âsatire is a glass in which we see every countenance but our own.â But really I fail to see the humor in this exercise.
Me (September, 2010, age 58)Â You tell me.
Here are some more tongue-in-cheek suggestions (See The Understanding Media Pun Contest) for new chapter topics and titles for Understanding Media:
Automatic Pencil: Getting the Lead Out
Pit Bull: Manâs Best Fiend
Microscope: Little Wonder
Smoke Signals: The Message is Blowing in the Wind
Quack-Quack: Fowl Language
Boring Conversation: Medium Tedium
Capital Punishment: A Live Issue?
Swedish Massage: The Masseuse is the Massage
Push-Up Bra: The Cleavage is the Message
Gypsy Fortune Teller:Â The Medium is the Message
George Hamilton:Â Narcissus as Narcosis
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading
Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media, 1964, pp. xi – xiii.
What did McLuhan mean by that?
Marshall McLuhan (1964, age 52). Isnât it obvious?
âMen seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses.â
Me (August, 2010, age 58). Whoâs looking at who?
In Understanding Media McLuhan says this old saying illustrates the fundamental principle âthat distinguishes hot and cold media.â That principle being that cold or cool media demand participation because they are low definition (providing little data) while hot media demand relatively little participation because they are high definition (providing much data).
If youâre wondering how this proverb illustrates this hold on to your hat. McLuhan says, âGlasses intensify the outward-going vision, and fill in the feminine image exceedingly, Marion the Librarian notwithstanding. Dark glasses, on the other hand, create the inscrutable and inaccessible image that invites a great deal of participation and completion.â In other words, girls who wear dark glasses get the passes, not because theyâre hot but because theyâre cool. And perhaps, also, boys who wear glasses donât make passes, because theyâre getting way too much information. Seriously, somebody should study this.
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading
Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media, 1964, pp. 49.
The secret is to avoid eye contact
Marshall McLuhan (1964, age 52). Isnât it obvious?
âThe name of a man is a numbing blow from which he never recovers.â
Me (August, 2010, age 58). Really?
What did McLuhan mean by this? Read Douglas Couplandâs recent biography of McLuhan and you will find this quotation separated from its context and put up as meaning that a manâs name has a subliminal effect. If your last name is Rich, for example, people wonât think youâre poor. A somewhat kooky idea that McLuhan adopted in his analysis of the difficulties of Richard Nixon. (See this blog – The Power of Names â in which I must admit I did not see this distinction as clearly as I do now.)
Take a look at what McLuhan is actually trying to say with this line in Understanding Media (p. 49). He starts with the observation that âin a highly visual and highly literate cultureâ â read Canada, Britain or America – most people canât quite catch the name of a person theyâre being introduced to for the first time. Why? Because McLuhan says youâre so caught up in looking at the person that you donât hear the name. Itâs as if the sound is blocked out or dimmed. To get the name you then ask âHow do you spell your name?â (How much more visual can you get?) This wouldnât happen, he says, in a highly auditory ear culture. In such a culture – to reach the quotation at last – âthe sound of a manâs name … is a numbing blow from which he never recovers.â
If you lived in an ear culture rather than an eye culture, McLuhan says, youâd hear the name. But we donât do we? Even today after half a century of television and now the internet we still seem to be a highly visual culture. We still have trouble hearing names for the first time. What do we do to help people hear names at large business meetings and social events? We ask them to wear name tags. (How much more visual can you get?)
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading
Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media, 1964, pp. 49.
The Twist is out
Marshall McLuhan (1964, age 52). Isnât it obvious?
If you want to know how media work you must look at how the world works. Consider this fact which I ran across in the special âRussiaâ issue of Life magazine (September 13, 1963). Apparently the Russians have declared the Twist âtabooâ in restaurants and nightclubs. The explanation for this state of affairs is obvious. The twist is cool which is inconsistent with the hotness of Russiaâs economic development programs that are driving its industrialization.
Me (August, 2010, age 58). Really?
This explanation for the cool reception of the Twist in cold-war Russia is so wonderfully quirky that it boggles the mind. And yet it is a remarkably apt analogy if you find analogies persuasive. The Russian economic development program was focused on the growth of heavy machinery. The very idea of an economic plan and heavy machinery is hot (low participation, high definition). The Twist is the epitome of cool (high participation, low definition). See for yourself….
Of course there are other reasons âŚ
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading
Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media, 1964, pp. 44.
What good is talk?
Marshall McLuhan (November 1965, age 54). Talk is the way.
Of course, for me, the best way to explore a subject is by talking it through. I canât understand what I think about something until I start talking about it. And sometimes it takes me four or five goes at it before Iâm even close to capturing what an idea is really all about. Some people have to think before they speak. For me I donât start thinking until Iâm speaking. Writing doesnât usually help me think the way talking does. When Iâm talking I feel alive.
Me (August, 2010, age 58). How do you think?
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading
Philip Marchand, Marshall McLuhan: The Medium and the Messenger, 1989, p. 66.