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Guides for the Perplexed
McLuhan: A Guide for the Perplexed
Marshall McLuhan was dubbed a media guru when he came to prominence in the 1960s. The Woodstock generation found him cool; their parents found him perplexing. By 1963, McLuhan was Director of the Centre for Culture and Technology at the University of Toronto and would be a public intellectual on the international stage for more than a decade, then linked forever to his two best known the global village and the medium is the message.
Taken as a whole, McLuhan's writings reveal a profound coherence and illuminate his unifying vision for the study of language, literature, and culture, grounded in the broad understanding of any medium or technology as an extension of the human body. A Guide for the Perplexed is a close reading of all of his work with a focus on tracing the systematic development of his thought. The overriding objective is to clarify all of McLuhan's thinking, to consolidate it in a fashion which prevents misreading, and to open the way to advancing his own ensuring that the world does not sleepwalk into the twenty-first century with nineteenth-century perceptions.
Taken as a whole, McLuhan's writings reveal a profound coherence and illuminate his unifying vision for the study of language, literature, and culture, grounded in the broad understanding of any medium or technology as an extension of the human body. A Guide for the Perplexed is a close reading of all of his work with a focus on tracing the systematic development of his thought. The overriding objective is to clarify all of McLuhan's thinking, to consolidate it in a fashion which prevents misreading, and to open the way to advancing his own ensuring that the world does not sleepwalk into the twenty-first century with nineteenth-century perceptions.
- GenresPhilosophy
214 pages, Paperback
First published February 25, 2010
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June 29, 2021
Great Guide for Understanding McLuhan Conceptually From Trivium to Tetrads - In this book, Gordon does a masterful job is showing the importance of McLuhan's early doctoral work on the Trivium in understanding his subsequent work as well as his late and posthumous efforts on the Tetrad.
In fact, this book traces the systematic development of McLuhan's thought by looking at his major works. He shows how McLuhan came to see new patterns in all media and technologies. Gordon addresses the evolution of McLuhan's metaphors for how media operate as well as shape and control the speed, scale, and form of human associations. These "figures (and "grounds") of speech" eventually became linked to four interlocking laws of media forming a Tetrad structure.
The Tetrad offers a means of media analysis with the broadest possible applications. Within the tetrad, there are direct and strong links to McLuhan's doctoral thesis tracing the Trivium of grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric from antiquity to the work of Thomas Nashe in the 16th century
Gordon indicates that three elements of the tetrad are actually present in his most prominent work, "Understanding Media" (i.e. amplification, reversal, obsolescence). He discusses how McLuhan's return to the concept of "chiasmus" (or contrast by reverse parallelism) central to the Trivium later in his career helped solidify his idea for the Tetrad. By including `retrieval' as explored in works such as "From Cliché to Archetype," McLuhan added the forth element to this means for examining the effects and implications of any technology or human innovation.
The author also wrote an excellent McLuhan biography as well as edited the first published version of "The Trivium" and reissues of other McLuhan publications. With such a foundation, Gordon provides additional background and material in this book. It is a fine source for the `perplexed' and for those of us seeking to understand McLuhan more fully.
In fact, this book traces the systematic development of McLuhan's thought by looking at his major works. He shows how McLuhan came to see new patterns in all media and technologies. Gordon addresses the evolution of McLuhan's metaphors for how media operate as well as shape and control the speed, scale, and form of human associations. These "figures (and "grounds") of speech" eventually became linked to four interlocking laws of media forming a Tetrad structure.
The Tetrad offers a means of media analysis with the broadest possible applications. Within the tetrad, there are direct and strong links to McLuhan's doctoral thesis tracing the Trivium of grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric from antiquity to the work of Thomas Nashe in the 16th century
Gordon indicates that three elements of the tetrad are actually present in his most prominent work, "Understanding Media" (i.e. amplification, reversal, obsolescence). He discusses how McLuhan's return to the concept of "chiasmus" (or contrast by reverse parallelism) central to the Trivium later in his career helped solidify his idea for the Tetrad. By including `retrieval' as explored in works such as "From Cliché to Archetype," McLuhan added the forth element to this means for examining the effects and implications of any technology or human innovation.
The author also wrote an excellent McLuhan biography as well as edited the first published version of "The Trivium" and reissues of other McLuhan publications. With such a foundation, Gordon provides additional background and material in this book. It is a fine source for the `perplexed' and for those of us seeking to understand McLuhan more fully.
Displaying 1 of 1 review