Technology and the Canadian mind: Innis, McLuhan, Grant

by Arthur Kroker

Book by Kroker, Arthur

Genres: Canada

144 pages, Paperback

First published December 31, 1984

Reviews

[Tony · Rating 5 out of 5]

Technē as the bane of culture:

You may not have considered each of these three authors, Grant/McLuhan/Innis, to be significant on their own, considered individually --indeed, you may not have even heard of them-- but Kroker shows how, when considered together as a whole, they are each and all more weighty thinkers than might usually be assumed. Together they provide insight on "technology as a field of human experience," or how we're caught up in the drift of technology, contrary to our wills. e.g. "Innis writes of the 'bias' of technology; and warns continually of the difficulty in breaking beyond the deep assumptions, the 'astygmatism' imposed by the communicative discourse within which one is trapped." (p.114, chp.4--emphasis added) e.g. Confronted with the abstract power of the "technological dynamo" that is the U.S. and its "deeply compromised" vision of the good life (consumerism), Grant claimed that the disappearance of the “inner restraint” peculiar to Canadian discourse and the “unleashing of unrestrained passions” are "the psychological sign[s] of admission to American empire." (p.35, chp.2) e.g. McLuhan sought to force to the surface of consciousness "the silent structural rules, the 'imposed assumptions' of the technological environment within which we are both enclosed and 'processed'; thereby exploring what it means for "human beings to live completely within the mediated environment of the technostructure." (pp.56-7, chp.3). In sum, McLuhan addresses "our fatal fascination with technology" (p.58, chp.3).

In a kind of Hegelian aufegehoben, Kroker sets up the opposition between a conservative, or nostalgic, backward-looking Grant and a progressive, or utopian, forward-looking McLuhan, both of whom appear somewhat ridiculous (by the end of the book) in comparison to the third term that mediates between them, and overcomes them, namely, Harold Innis. The latter Innis is the more serious, or "pragmatic", of the three authors, and the last chapter on Innis makes his thought supersede the insights of the two opposed figures treated in the earlier chapters--even though Innis was from an earlier generation, who may have "got to the age of radio, but not beyond it" (p.129), and wrote at a point in time antecedant to such things as "moon shots," medical prosthetics, the silicon chip, on-demand streaming television, podcasts, or cruise missiles--let alone open source software, the uibiquity of smart phones, the prospects of artificial intelligence, the threat of drone "swarms", etc.--all the technology of recent decades which none of these authors could have imagined. Grant died in 1988, McLuhan in 1980, and Innis in 1952: In taking them in reverse chronological order, Kroker appears to be saying something about cultural relevance being independent of technological advances, and the older author having more to say to 'us' due to our ethical lag (recte "ethics lag", as Kroker puts it, p.127) in coming to terms with the implications of the latest waves of technology washing over us.

Innis sought "a general therapeutic for the arc of contemporary societies," his ideal being that of a “stable society”: a society typified by “permanence and continuity” (Kroker, p.100) "which would require a dynamic harmony between technology and culture" (p.105), placing Innis within "the pragmatic strain in North American thought." (p.106) Innis is the more worthy of our attention because he has "has broken generations of silence imposed by official ideology on the victims of technical dependency and class struggle..." (p.102) "It was his intention, using a broad, evolutionary model of socio-economic development, to apply the properly biological principles of 'growth and decay.' ” (p.108) "Innis provides us with a 'method' for the study of the technological habitat: its ontology is the problem of technology and culture as radically dualistic... [I]t was Innis’ contribution to extend the dependency thesis into an exploration of the commodification of the New World." (pp.109-110) Plenty of good reasons, then, to take up the writings of Innis.

A rhetorical trick Kroker uses is to try to dress-up each of these thinkers with a representative piece of artwork, so that there are also mini-disquisitions in art criticism for each of the three artists selected, respectively, Colville/Seurat/Proch, or each of the three specific artworks used to hang the ideas on. Each chapter begins with discussion of the representative artwork...

[Robert Hudder · Rating 4 out of 5]

As advertised, a birds eye view of three Canadian minds on technology. After finishing the two Grant books recently, reading this reinforced my thoughts and clarified some of what I was thinking. In terms of McLuhan, I think that after talking about Grant and Halifax, he should have mentioned McLuhan and the west. I do think there is a rural nature to McLuhan. There are some parts of McLuhan that are left until the section on Innis to discuss.

It is remarkable that these folks still have a little relevance when discussing Canada and its connection to the US and by extension, technology, after all these years. Their approaches are definitely helpful as ways of trying to understand communications now. But as Kroker points out, none of them lived to see what has been wrought by the chip.

[Kasper · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can almost guarantee that this book will make you interested in and skeptical about technological enhancements of humans, and about a potential future merging between the two. Several decades after it was written it still rests somewhere in between prediction, science fiction and the fantastic. And it's an amazing read.