Thursday, October 27, 2011

Marshall McLuhan quotes on technology and soceity


*"Man becomes, as it were, the sex organs of the machine world, as the bee of the plant world, enabling it to fecundate and to evolve ever new forms. The machine world reciprocates man's love by expediting his wishes and desires, namely, in providing him with wealth."
*"Hypnotized by their rear-view mirrors, philosophers and scientists alike tried to focus the figure of man in the old ground of the 19th century industrial mechanism and congestion. They failed to bridge from the old figure to the new. It is man who has become both figure and ground via the electrotechnical extension of his awareness. With the extension of his nervous system as a total information environment, man bridges art and nature."
*"Once we have surrendered our senses and nervous systems to the private manipulation of those who would try to benefit from taking a lease on our eyes and ears and nerves, we don't really have any rights left. Leasing our eyes and ears and nerves to commercial interests is like handing over the common speech to a private corporation, or like giving the earth's atmosphere to a company as a monopoly."
*"We become what we behold. We shape our tools and therefore our tools shape us."

These quotes got me thinking about the connections between technology and society and how both are intertwined in a big dense web. However, another argument McLuhan makes is that making sense is still a human monopoly.

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