Status Updates From Essential McLuhan

"American Advertising"

Having read more background on later mid-20th-century Canadian poets, I wonder if my previous assessment of this introduction is not critical enough of how much it isn't. The editor scorns McLuhan's detractors in a leet sort of way, but like many Canadian critics, seems less political than the author's, or audience's, original context.

Currently able to sign out a copy on inter-library loan, so reading content now.

Intro complete. It was not easy to follow and I probably would have been better off going straight into the book (except for the last segment of the intro, which explains how the book is sectioned).

I'm going to have to read this whole intro twice, aren't I? I accidentally reread the second half of my previous progress, realized how new it sounded, and so reread it all. Then to not lose my original goal, I kept going for one more segment and ended up here. This is a bit simpler, containing some academia drama. I learned a new word: Dunciad! How spirited and opined! Maybe the metaphysics part also wasn't too hard

It's going to be slow going through the intro, since Marshall's son is not as fun to read as himself. What's more is my library's copy has Local Heritage status, so patrons have reduced privileges for taking it out, if any. Funny... I keep finding out that important Canadians I want to read are either from here or spent enough of their lives here to be thought of that way.

Our typical response to a disrupting new technology is to re-create the old environment instead of heeding the new opportunities of the new environment. Failure to notice the new opportunities is also failure to understand the new powers. This means that we fail to develop the necessary controls or antienvironments for the new environment. This failure leaves us in the role of mere automata.

There is an impression abroad that literary folk are fast readers. Wine tasters are not heavy drinkers. Literary people read slowly because they sample the complex dimensions and flavors of words and phrases. They strive for totality not lineality. They are well aware that the words on the page have to be decanted with the utmost skill. Those who imagine they read only for “content” are illusioned.

The “content” of a medium is like the juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind. The effect of the medium is made strong and intense just because it is given another medium as “content.”

Today the tyrant rules not by club or fist, but, disguised as a market researcher, he shepherds his flocks in the ways of utility and comfort.