2024–12–15
1403/09/25
ANNO·​VICESIMO·​OCTAVO·​DIE·​TRECENTESIMO·​QVADRAGESIMO·​SECVNDO·​VITÆ·​POVYA
Optimism-PessimismKnot
Optimism-Pessimism Knot
Quotes & Excerpts

The basic strategy for coping with information overload is myth.

MARSHALL MCLUHAN

50 years ago, people could be sure of who they were that way. Today, that no longer serves as human identity. For example, among our own children today, they refuse to accept jobs as a form of identity or a mark of significance. They want roles, instead. The job was a highly classified, specialized activity. Today, the role is returning.

A man, say a top executive, doesn’t have a job. He has 50 jobs, 60 jobs. That’s a role. A mother doesn’t have a job. She has 60 jobs. That’s a role. In the electric age, all forms of human activity become associated, closely interwoven again. Fragmentation, specialism disappears with circuitry. Roles return. Roles equal depth, equal involvement, equal commitment, equal dedication.

MARSHALL MCLUHAN

Computer displays are low-resolution devices, working at extremely thin data densities, 1/1o to 1/1ooo of a map or book page. This reflects the essential dilemma of a computer display: at every screen are two powerful information-processing capabilities, human and computer. Yet all communication between the two must pass through the low- resolution, narrow-band video display terminal, which chokes off fast, precise, and complex communication.

EDWARD R. TUFTE

Take off the date line from any newspaper and you’ll have a Surrealist poem.

MARSHALL MCLUHAN

In an electric society, where everybody affects everybody at the same moment, it is impossible any longer to say, “He done it.” It’s just as realistic to say, “I did it.” Again, at instant speeds of involvement of people in people, not only is there no possibility of assigning guilt, or the things that people formerly had legalistically assigned guilt, there’s also the difficulty of even knowing who we are.

MARSHALL MCLUHAN

In my opinion this is an example of hidden ground behind the motorcar. Why do Americans go outside to be alone, unlike other people? That is a pretty tough question, but as far as I’ve been able to determine it relates to the fact that 200 years ago or more, our people came to this continent to fight nature, to tame the wilderness, and to subdue the elements.

This typically led them out of doors to a kind of aggressive action against the environment. The environment was the enemy. It had to be subdued, tamed. This developed a habit of going outside aggressively and extrovertedly to fight.

MARSHALL MCLUHAN
Day's Context
Open Books