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.
Writing
The oral method of Marshall McLuhan … continued
Marshall McLuhan (1962-1963, age 51-52). The good of talking it out
I am happiest talking. Talk is a technology to deliver understanding of what you think right now. Writing is a technology for preserving what it was you used to think. I prefer to talk about what I’m thinking now rather than what it was I used to think. The academic boys don’t get this. Plato got it. He has Socrates say that writing is a dangerous technology that allows you to deliver someone else’s thinking as if it’s your own.
Michael Hinton (2009, age 57). How Marshall McLuhan talked it out
To find out more about Marshall McLuhan and his methods of thinking and preference for talking over writing, a conversation I told you a bit about yesterday, I spoke with Professor Abraham Rotstein, professor emeritus in economics, at the University of Toronto, who was a member of McLuhan’s circle in the 1960s. Here is what he told me about McLuhan’s methods for talking it out.
Rotstein: McLuhan worked as an oral man in research. He spoke through his books dozens of times. His monologues [it is said that McLuhan was a very polite listener, he never started to speak until he saw your lips had stopped moving) were his way of writing books. He had a hierarchy or stable of people called to whom he would rattle on. Basically there were four groups of people [he would phone to talk to in the evenings]: (1) 9pm-10pm graduate students; (2) 10 pm-11pm faculty; (3) after 11pm special people; and (4) up to 1 am [Tom] Easterbrook and other close buddies.
When McLuhan called he would rattle on at great speed. McLuhan presented orally work that later became written. He put down on paper what he had already thought out through extensive oral repetition.
Compare McLuhan’s style in his letters or interviews with his style in his books. Can you see the difference? How do you think the people in McLuhan’s stable handled being phoned and rattled on to? Is this the price they were willing to pay to be close to genius?
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading for this post
See the pre-1968 interviews of McLuhan on www.digitallantem.net/mcluhan
Tags: Acoustic, American mind, Communications, Conversation, Creating, Education, Listening, Medium is the message, Relationship, Technology, Writing
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The oral method of Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan (1962 - 1963, age 51 – 52). Talking it out
I am primarily an oral man, a word man, not a numbers man. Writing is not my genius, talking is my genius. That is why I like to talk my books out. The problem is that it’s easy to undershoot and overshoot. With some books I probably should have stopped earlier with others I should have spent more time. The ideas got me going, always more ideas. I had to keep moving on, so much to discover.
Michael Hinton (2009, age 57). To understand McLuhan is to hear McLuhan
I spoke with Professor Abraham Rotstein, a professor emeritus, at the University of Toronto, who was a member of McLuhan’s circle in the 1960s. We spoke on the phone in August. I had a picture of him in my mind as we spoke, Professor Rotstein in the late 1970s, which was when I first met him, at the Monday night economic history seminars, which I attended as a graduate student in economics at Toronto. He’s wearing I imagine a dark jacket and tie, his hair is thinning and slicked back, he has a cigarette going in holder which lends him the appearance of a scholarly Jewish FDR. His trade mark was the question with such a long preamble that you had to fight to remember the question. Fortunately I’m asking the questions. I begin by asking him about how he first met Marshall McLuhan.
Rotstein: I was invited to a seminar, in 1962 or 1963. McLuhan was a friend of my thesis supervisor, Tom Easterbrook. I gave a presentation to McLuhan’s graduate students and onlookers on the idea of the various senses as extensions of man. I pointed out that the idea was present in the writings of the early Marx: the idea that man’s economic activities are extensions of man and in extending him they alienate him. McLuhan nodded when I said this but you could tell he wasn’t paying very much attention.
Me: The extensions of man, of course, is the subtitle of Understanding Media, which is probably McLuhan’s best bought if not best read book. Many people find it hard to read. I did myself. Was that your experience?
Rotstein: I don’t know if I’ve ever had a lot of difficulty understanding McLuhan. Understanding McLuhan is basically an oral exercise. I was always listening to him. I never read Understanding Media. Didn’t have to, McLuhan spoke it to me.
(The interview continues tomorrow)
What is your experience reading McLuhan? Do you find him difficult to understand? Can you think of ways to recreate the oral experience Professor Rotstein is talking about?
Relevance to your life: Are you an oral man or woman? How do you think things through?
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading for this post
See the pre 1968 interviews of Mcluhan on www.digitallantem.net/mcluhan
Tags: Acoustic, American mind, Communications, Conversation, Creating, Medium is the message, Writing
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The continuing story of a cheap education
Marshall McLuhan (1960, age 48-49). Today most learning takes place outside the classroom
Cheap education as I said before costs a lot. The bought essay is an extension of the student’s minds. A service that allows students to buy essays is a technology for delivering grades. Another example of how learning takes place outside the classroom and by different people from the students who buy the essays. The problem for students who buy essays is that for the rest of their lives they will most likely have to keep on buying them. Only the essays will be called field reports, quarterly updates, white papers, business proposals, or scientific research.
Michael Hinton (2009, age 57). The price of this blog
On Wednesday, October 28th, I told you about ordering a custom essay of 1000 words (including footnotes and bibliography) from the Essay Bay essay writing service on the subject “Marshall McLuhan on the cost of a cheap education” that would fetch at least 80 percent. As of today seven writers have made bids on this job and offered to write the piece for me that would fetch at least 70 percent. Here are the prices I was bid (which include a $15 for Essay Bay because I’d asked that the job be ‘featured’ on their site): $67.65, $54.15, $112.20, $82.50, $69.00, $109.50, and $69.00. The average price is therefore $80.57, which is lower than I guessed it would be. But not low enough to persuade me to buy an essay and post it on this site. Possibly because if the writers do an Internet search I may wind up buying back my own words.
Today I went to the Concordia Library and picked up the October 27 issue of The Link, the student newspaper in which I first saw the ad. The ad for custom essays was still being printed in the papers classified section.
If you have a son or daughter at college or university ask them about the practice of buying essays. Who does this? Are they tempted to do this? If you are going to college or university ask yourself: Would you or have you ever bought one? Was this a good experience? Do you know anyone who did? Were they proud, ashamed, uncaring or indifferent to what they had done? What excuses if any do people give for buying a paper? Is the essay an obsolete assessment and learning tool?
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading for this post
McLuhan, Marshall. “Classroom without Walls,” in Explorations in Communication. Edited by Edmund Carpenter and Marshall McLuhan. Boston: Beacon, 1960, pp. 1-3.
Posner, Richard A. The Little Book of Plagiarism. New York: Pantheon, 2007.
Tags: Communications, Education, Learning, Medium is the message, Technology, Writing
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Papyrus and the Roman Empire: The story continues
Marshall McLuhan (May, 1964, age 52). Don’t underestimate the power of papyrus
Finkelstein (see yesterday’s post) has no interest in the truth. He’s another one of those small minds entranced with facts. One should never let the facts get in the way of a good story. Empire rises and falls because of papyrus is definitely a good story. To be sure the causal relationship I have in mind is more what Aristotle would have called material and formal cause than efficient. But no mater, if Finkelstein would only open his mind and start thinking he’d see that not all is as he thinks it is.
Michael Hinton (October, 2009, age 57). Don’t overestimate the power of papyrus
I asked two economic historians about the papyrus story: Abraham Rotstein, Professor Emeritus in Economics at the University of Toronto and Deirdre McCloskey, Distinguished Professor of Economics, History, English and Communication at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Professor Rotstein who was a member of McLuhan’s speaking circle in the 1960s (more on this later) told me that he doubted whether papyrus provided much of an explanation for the rise or fall of the Roman Empire. At any rate he said he didn’t think it was in Gibbon. Professor McCloskey pointed out that even if the Romans were cut off from supplies of Egyptian papyrus they could have obtained it by trade with India.
What you might ask has this to do with my life? What is McLuhan trying to say? Surely not that he is making a contribution to our understanding of ancient history. But rather I think to our understanding of our own age. What biases in time or space do our dominant means of communication have? Innis [see yesterday] believed papyrus favoured the growth of Empires in space and the parchment codex growth over time. Is the Internet more like papyrus or the parchment codex? What about Facebook? What about Twitter? And other forms of social media?
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading for this post
Finkelstein, Sidney. Sense and Nonsense of McLuhan. New York: International Pub., 1968, pp. 13-17.
McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media, 1964, pp. 100 and 134.
Innis, H.A. The Bias of Communication, (1951) Second ed. Toronto: U. of T. Press, 2008, pp. 47-49.
Tags: Communications, Culture, Education, Global village, Gutenberg Galaxy, Medium is the message, Social media, Technology, Writing
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Students pay too much when they buy essays
Marshall McLuhan (The 1960s, age 48-58). Cheap educations are costly
I went to the University of Manitoba and obtained a B.A. in 1933 and an M.A. in 1934. I then decided the best thing to do next was start all over again. In 1934 I went to Cambridge, England to study for my second B.A.. I then went on to win my union card as a teacher by studying for the Ph.D. at Cambridge, which they granted me in 1943. You might think this is a lot to pay in time and money for an education. It isn’t. As I like to say the problem with a cheap education is that you never stop paying for it.
Michael Hinton (October, 2009, age 57). Students are paying dearly today for cheap educations
Here is an advertisement that appeared in the October 13 issue of The Link a Concordia University student newspaper.
PROFESSIONAL ESSAY HELP. Research, writing and editing. Writers with post-graduate degrees available to help! All subjects, all levels. Plus: resumes, job applications and entrance letters! 1-888-345-8295 www.customessays.com
I e-mailed a request to custom essays for a 1000 word essay on the subject “Marshall McLuhan on the cost of a cheap education,” stipulating that I wanted it to be worth at least 80 percent. I got 6 bids from writers for an essay that would get me 70 percent. I don’t know at what price, but it seems likely the price would be between $100 and $200. Tony Keller a student investigative journalist at York University obtained bids of between $100 and $400 for a 1,750 word essay he ordered on “America’s war on Moustaches.”
Is this good value for money? What is the real cost of buying an essay?
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading for this post
Keller, Tony. “Need to Cheat? On a Budget? Visit Essay Bay,” Macleans.ca On Campus, March, 2008.
Marchand, Philip. Marshall McLuhan: the medium and the messenger, 1989, pp. 19-47.
Tags: Advertising, Books, Business, Communications, Education, Global village, Management education, Medium is the message, Writing
Beholding the bright countenance of truth
Marshall McLuhan (April, 1974, age 62). It’s easy if you have a question
Ran into a graduate student in the French department here at Toronto University. He seemed down. I asked him what was wrong and he told me that he feels like he’ll never finish his doctoral dissertation. He’s writing on the tragedies of Voltaire and he’s in his 7th year in the program. I gave him a hand. “What’s your definition of tragedy?” I asked. He started to mumble on about tragedy as an art form. “No, no,” I said. “It’s a technological medium of communication designed to deliver tragedy. The Greeks invented it to save their cultural inheritance from the obliterating effects of the invention of the alphabet.” He seemed perplexed. No matter he’s a smart kid. He’ll get it. Especially if he works with the second piece of advice I gave him. Reading is easy if you know what you’re looking for. In other words, come to the book with a question. (That’s what I did in my doctoral dissertation on Thomas Nashe, which is a history of the trivium – the arts of grammar, rhetoric and logic – from the 1st century B.C. to the 17th century A.D.) But enough about this, I must get down to work.
Michael Hinton (October, 2009, age 57). Some questions are better than others
The graduate student McLuhan ran into was Derrick De Kerkhove. What happened to him? Four months later he finished and submitted a 450 page thesis which he successfully defended, and whose defence Marshall McLuhan went to see. (You can read De Kerkhove’s story in the book Who Was Marshall McLuhan?” – see the readings, below.)
McLuhan’s advice about coming to a book, (or anything else – article, magazine, newspaper, blog, tweet) with a question is fascinatingly obvious and a powerful tool for coming away with something valuable and creative rather than just a bunch of facts. But to employ this approach it helps to have some good questions. There are many questions you could ask but some are better than others. Here for example are four general questions that I think are pretty good ones:
- What is the writer trying to tell us?
- How does she go about the telling?
- Why is she telling us this?
- What does it matter if she is right, or wrong?
Is this what McLuhan means by know what you are looking for? What other interpretation(s) are possible? What other questions do you think are useful?
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading for this post
Nevitt, Barrington, with Maurice McLuhan. Who was Marshall McLuhan? Exploring a mosaic of impressions. Edited by Frank Zingrone, Wayne Constantineau, and Eric McLuhan, Toronto: Stoddart, 1994, pp. 86-89.
Tags: Books, Communications, Education, Global village, Medium is the message, Reading, Writing
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