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.
Listening
Yesterday’s Speeches.
Marshall McLuhan (1966, age 54/55). Nobody wants yesterday’s speech?
Tony Schwartz, the New York sound wizard, has done it again. He has embarrassed me. I asked Tony if he would record one of my big speeches.
He said, “No! Who wants to listen to something you said yesterday, Marshall. They want to hear what you have to say today!”
He’s absolutely right, bless him. Information is coming at us so fast that anything I said yesterday must be obsolete.
Me (July, 2010, age 57). Why do people collect them?
Speeches in business age quickly. Yet many people continue to ask conference speakers for copies of their presentation slides. Why? (I am not talking about the presentations of celebrity speakers, but rather the hard-copy of Joe and Mary director of marketing.) It is difficult to believe there is much to be learned from these slides. Perhaps the collectors believe they are paying the speaker a compliment. Most speakers I would guess do not feel complimented. Most have better things to do. Perhaps the collectors hope they can use a slide or two in an upcoming talk. But I see little sign that these collected speeches or presentations are actually used in this way. Which leads me back to the question.
Why do people collect yesterday’s speeches?
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading for this post
Barrington Nevitt with Maurice McLuhan, Who Was Marshall McLuhan? 1994, p. 153.
Tags: Business, Celebrity, Communications, Culture, Listening, Management education, Rhetoric
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Always on send
Marshall McLuhan (1965/66, age 53-55?). In conversation with Howard Gossage.
“Marshall, will you listen for a second?”
“Why?”
“Because I have something to say.”
“Well, say it then.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to do.”
“Well”
“Well what?”
“I’ve forgotten.”
Me (June 2010, age 57). How bad was McLuhan as a listener?
It is agreed that McLuhan was a polite but not a good listener. (The story being that he always waited for your lips to stop moving before he began speaking.) Howard Gossage, who knew McLuhan well, says that while McLuhan was a bad listener McLuhan did have friends who were worse than he was. For example, Gossage says that Buckminster Fuller, who was profoundly deaf, and often turned off his hearing aid, was the worst listener in McLuhan’s wider circle. On one occasion, Gossage says, Fuller stopped him in mid-sentence with the question, “Do you want an answer or don’t you? Very well, [said Gossage.]” Fuller then proceeded to give him an answer. One problem, it wasn’t the answer to the question that he had been discussing. But then all Fuller had promised him was “an answer” not “the answer.”
The price of poor listening seems obvious. What is the benefit?
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading for this post
Howard Luck Gossage, “You can see why the mighty would be curious,” in McLuhan: Hot and Cool, 1969, footnote, p. 24.
Tags: Communications, Conversation, Listening, Relationship, Rhetoric
The miracle of communication.
Marshall McLuhan (November, 1965, age 54). In conversation at lunch.
“Marshall, a question. What has the world’s greatest communicator failed to communicate today?”
“Heaven knows. But let’s be serious, Barry. Most people assume that anyone who can speak or write clearly can communicate. But communicating anything really new is always a miracle – very rare, but not impossible.”
Me (June 2010, age 57). What did Marshall McLuhan mean?
This snippet of conversation – well most of it, I have added some things on – was recalled twenty-odd years later by McLuhan’s long-time friend and colleague Barrington Nevitt.
The problem with new ideas, McLuhan often suggested or implied is that they’re hard work. You have to think. He thought most people were intellectually lazy. They would rather have old ideas. They were asleep. They want to get into their newspaper like they do a hot bath.
Getting people to listen to and grasp a new idea, McLuhan thought had nothing to do with clear speaking or writing. In fact he often said clear speaking or writing was evidence of the absence of thought.
How hard is it to communicate new ideas? Are old ideas really any easier to communicate? What has been your experience?
Cordially, Marshall and Me
P.S. To our Canadian readers, a happy Dominion Day from Marshall and Me
Reading for this post
Who Was Marshall McLuhan. Edited by Barrington Nevitt with Maurice McLuhan, 1995, pp. 107.
Tags: Communications, Listening, Thinking
The maddening Marshall McLuhan.
Marshall McLuhan (1967, age 65/66). In conversation with Howard Gossage
“Marshall,” said Howard Gossage, “tell me something. Do you have to be such a maddening writer?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I’ll be reading along and at first it’s great. “I find that [my] … independently arrived at theories not only are confirmed by, but fit neatly into [your] … far broader structure, it is very heady stuff indeed. And then wham. You hit me with one of your probes. Something that requires 5,000 words of explanation and you give me none.”
“Howard, if I stopped to explain everything I said I’d never get anywhere, besides there has to be something for the reader to do.”
Me (June 2010, age 57). So what’s a man, or a woman, to do?
Perhaps the only thing you can do when you hit a probe [a question or statement designed to stimulate thought or insight] is to grin and then decide whether or not to do your work.
Here are some McLuhan probes:
People will not accept war on TV. They will accept war in movies. They will accept it in newspapers. Nobody will accept war on TV. It is too close. (1973)
The ideal show on pay TV would be a great composer rehearsing a symphony, not playing his symphony. (1967)
The TV image is the first technology to project or externalize our tactile sense. (1961)
TV is a service medium only during a crisis. (1970)
The TV as a today show is a continuous present. There are really no dates. (1971)
Do any of these probes still “madden”? What if in each one the word “TV” were replaced by “Internet” or “FaceBook”?
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading for this post
Howard Luck Gossage, “You can see why the mighty would be curious.” In McLuhan: Hot and Cool.
Probes: Eric McLuhan and Frank Zingrone, Essential McLuhan, 1995, pp. 294-295.
Tags: American mind, Communications, Conversation, Creating, Criticism, Learning, Listening, Movies, Rhetoric, Television, Thinking
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What you see on the phone.
Marshall McLuhan (1977, age 66). Just something I’ve observed
Here’s something I’ve noticed for years. Receptionists in the business world have all had the experience of finally meeting people in person they’ve only known by their discarnate voice over the telephone. They tell me that they are surprised to discover that these people do not look the way they thought they would look. For the most part, they cannot tell me why they are surprised, only that they are surprised.
Me (May 2010, age 57). What does experience tell us?
This observation forms the basis for one of Marshall McLuhan’s “warm up” exercises to “sharpen your powers of observation,” which you can find in his book City as Classroom.
This is one of those observations that strikes me as true to experience, and at the same time peculiar and strangely unsettling to those who have experienced it. The key questions about it I think are “Why?” and “So what?” And whether it is an experience peculiar to the telephone.
Have you ever had such an experience? Have you ever had a similar experience using the new social media?
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading for this post
Marshall McLuhan, Kathryn Hutchon, and Eric McLuhan, City as Classroom: Understanding Language and Media, 1977, pp. 7.
Tags: Communications, Electronic media, Listening, Relationship, Social media, Technology, Visual medium, Visual perspective
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The strangeness of you.
Marshall McLuhan (May 7, 1976, age 64). Absolutely amazing !
I often use a simple home recorder to study poetry. A group of us will read a poem and the most remarkable things happen when you separate your voicing of a line from the immediate hurly burly of the present and listen to it as if it was being said by someone else.
I remember Wyndham Lewis as being bowled over by the sound of his own voice. He is English but was surprised to hear that he had an English accent. “Bloody Hell,” he said, “I thought I had an American accent.” I must admit I was as shocked as he was.
Me (May 2010, age 57). Shocking
Why is it that our voices sound so strange and unpleasing when we listen to them as a recording? I’ve had people tell me I have a wonderful voice. That’s not my reaction when I hear it recorded. I say, “what a peculiar sounding voice.”
The experience is totally different from ordinary live conversation. No matter how hard I concentrate when I am speaking I cannot catch the sound of my own voice or change it to match how I’d rather have it sound. It is said this has something to do with the way the heads we are inside (bone, sinew, tissue) affect the way we hear the sounds we make when we are speaking. But it does seem odd to me that over time I have never adjusted to the strangeness of hearing my voice. And I have a similar reaction to photographs in which I appear.
What is your reaction to the sound of your own voice or picture of your image? Why do you think that is?
Cordially, Marshall and Me
P.S. Marshall McLuhan, it is said, disliked having his picture taken.
Reading for this post
Letters of Marshall McLuhan, 1987, pp. 519.
Tags: Communications, Listening, Personal branding, Technology
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How are you?
Marshall McLuhan (January 25, 1973, age 61). I hate that question.
You walk into a room, pass someone strolling down the street, or bump into an acquaintance at work, and dollars to donuts they’ll look you straight in the eye and say, “How are you?” or “How are you feeling?” or “How are you doing.” It makes me wince. It’s as if they’d stepped on my toes. Clearly, they don’t really care how I am, it’s just a load of social hooey. My usual reply is, “Are you sure you really want to know? Because if you do this may take some time.”
Me (May 2010, age 57). I hate that question too.
Another question I dislike is “Are you busy?” Of course I am but that’s not the question is it?
What social greetings do you dislike?
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading for this post
Letters of Marshall McLuhan, 1987, pp. 463.
Tags: Communications, Conversation, Culture, Listening, Relationship, Social norms
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What’s the bad news?
Marshall McLuhan (January 24, 1969, age 57). It takes bad news to sell good news
As I was telling our Prime Minister, the coolest of the cool – Pierre Elliott Trudeau – the press, the newspapers, are ever on the lookout for bad news. Friction is inevitable. They are relentless in their search for bad news. The bad news is what sells the good news, which is advertising, which is what keeps the newspapers going. Incidentally, as you can see simply by opening your morning paper it takes a great deal of bad news to sell the good news of relief from perspiration, halitosis, and ring around the collar.
Me (April 2010, age 57). What is your bad news?
If Marshall McLuhan is right, the problem with business today is that all they have to offer is good news. What this means is that no one will want to read or hear what businesses have say unless businesses pay to have their messages snuck in along side of the bad news people will willingly read.
How can you get people to listen to what you have to say if all you have to tell them is good news? Where can you find the bad news to set a long side your good news?
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading for this post
Letters of Marshall McLuhan, 1987, p. 362.
Tags: Advertising, Communications, Culture, Listening, Relationship, Rhetoric
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The Marshall McLuhan approach.
Marshall McLuhan (January 13, 1966, age 54). Why I have no point of view.
It’s really quite simpIe, I want know what’s going on. Have you noticed that people with points of view, theories to defend, axes to grind, are the most emotional? In most organizations everyone has a point of view. As a result they cannot see what’s going on. They’re too busy getting hot under the collar – too busy looking at things from their fixed stance, to see what’s happening.
Me (March 2010, age 57). Why have a point of view?
What about the people where you work? If everyone has their point of view, who is able to see what’s going on? Instead of having ‘Casual Fridays’, why don’t you suggest that next Friday be declared, ‘No Point of View Friday’?
What if he’s right not to have a point of view? Maybe you should drop your point of view, whatever it is?
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading for this post
Letters of Marshall McLuhan, 1987, p. 332.
Tags: Communications, Culture, Education, Learning, Listening, Thinking
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Why do communications fail?
Marshall McLuhan (June 15, 1964, age 52). That’s a good question.
I’m constantly amazed that anyone at any time can communicate anything to anyone else. This morning, for example, Corinne asked me, “Do you think this dress makes me look fat?”
“What do you mean?” said I.
“Just what I said.”
“What was that?”
“Marshall!”
That I think is pretty typical of conversations between married couples. And yet It seems to me that most of us assume that most of the time when we are communicating we are actually communicating even though, of course, we’re doing nothing of the sort. The better assumption to make if you want to communicate is to assume you’ll be misunderstood. Must run, I’m being interviewed at the CBC in 30 minutes. I wonder where my lucky jacket is?
“Corinne? Do you know where my tartan jacket is?
“The red or the green?
“The red, of course.”
“In the closet, on the right.”
“It’s not there.”
“Marshall, if I come up and find it hanging there.”
“Never mind. I’ll find it myself.”
“Marshall!
Me (February 2010, age 57). That’s a good answer.
What if you began every conversation with the assumption that it was highly unlikely that you would be able to get your message across instead of the assumption that it was highly likely that your message would be understood? You might want to keep a mental diary today, I know I will, to keep note of the number of successful and unsuccessful conversations you have – successful meaning understood and unsuccessful meaning misunderstood. So far, as I write this, it’s early in the day and I’m 1 for 2.
Are misunderstandings more or less likely at home or at work? In which setting are you more likely to assume you will be understood?
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading for this post
Letters of Marshall McLuhan, 1987, p.303
Tags: Communications, Conversation, Listening, Rhetoric