I recently received this link from a friend http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8ofWFx525s&feature=channel_video_title
He commented “Some interesting thoughts presented in this video. This is something that I’ve been kind of thinking about in the back of my mind for a while now. Frankly I find some of the implications to be a little scary. What do you all think?”
To which I commented: It is a bit scary, come to think of it. It takes me back to a book that I read several times many years ago, but have not read for a long time (and recently could not find my copy): Understanding Media by Marshall McLuhan. It was an audacious book that destroyed his academic career. But it sort of made sense to me at the time, and after watching this, still does. His thesis is that our communications media have the power to profoundly alter the way we think and the societies in which we live. Changes can be so far-reaching as to be revolutionary. The invention of writing altered the course of history, and later so did the invention of print. These have been, among other things, instrumental in de-tribalizing society. Regardless of what the new medium says, its very existence is transformative, hence the phrase that made him a laughing-stock, “the medium is the message.” Some media are not even verbal, the clock, the railroad, the electric light, for example, yet they function as communications media. The linear nature of alphabetic writing, followed by the interchangeability of type, made the assembly line possible. That is why, Jared Diamond would say, the assembly line was invented in and transformed the West and then adopted in Asia, with its ideogramatic writing systems, rather than the other way around.
That was the past. But McLuhan writes about the present and speculates on the future. He sees the electronic media as being the next great transformation. Bear in mind that he is writing primarily about television. In the 1960s, computers were still hulking beasts lurking in the basements of large corporations and major universities, and anything like the internet belonged to the realm of science fiction, so he doesn’t specifically address them to any great degree. He distinguishes between “hot” and “cool” media, but I forget which is which, or how it matters, which it does.
He talks about the electronic media opening the door to the re-tribalization of society (he also coined the term “global village”). Isn’t that exactly what this little lecture is about? Once again, I find myself thinking McLuhan was onto something!!! I suggest you put it on your reading lists, and I will put it on my re-reading list. It seems to still be in print, although how or whether later editions differ from the 1964 edition I read, I have no idea. Warning: it will hurt your head.