McLuhan

So... this post it waaaaaay late. despite the fact that I was the one who lead the discussion on it. whoops!

Writing used to unite people with their ancestors, now it unites them with their current world. Cold media (such as telephone, television, hieroglyphics, electricity) have high participation give littler information and therefore giving the choice to listener. It unifies and includes across the ages. Hot media (such as radio, alphabet, railway) have low participation, a lot of information, extends the senses to high definition, it is for the specialized and therefore, alienating, excluding. Because the two are so different, almost opposites, one period following another can be very destructive.

Literature dominates our life it has changed our philosophy to a linear one of reason. Yet, this reason to us simply means the uniform, the continuous, and the two dimensional sequential. In the electric age where linearity became outdated, our reason seems outdated.  The breaking point of the electric age was making things instant and therefore imploding a world that had been exploding. Our literal minds are unprepared for the extension of ourselves (technology and mediums) that are no longer lineal, so we keep it as an extension it is not suited for topics that are “hot”. Reading isolated us and will not let us see the ‘big’ picture. Now that the big picture is here we sling to frame or go into shock because it has the capacity to change our life. Similarly, we stick to the intelligent man who is simply the uniform and they are too embedded in uniform culture to notice its problems. It is not a far jump to say that we have put a limit on the intelligence of man by limiting him to a certain uniformity.

Beyond limiting us, our inability to think in the new terms causes us to go into a kind of shock. “…TV axe has turned the hot American culture into a cool one that is quite unacquainted with itself” (27). We are used to thinking of ourselves only and how we matter to the world (an exploding mind set). Our new media is cool and therefore exploding. However, we have not adjusted to this yet. Therefore, McLuhan suggests we have to go back to the thinking of our old ways in order to react to this new world. In order to get over the shock of this new technology and accept it as a true extension of ourselves, we have to get rid of our specialized thinking and habits; we have to regain our traditional inclusive culture because it is compatible with the imploding world still to come.

I thought it was really interesting that McLuhan divided all of culture into these categories of hot and cold and how he related all of them to each other. However, he makes almost no commentary on one being better than the other. Despite careful reading, he seemed to say neither. Coolness or heat are not bad in themselves, it is simply the shock of being stuck in a culture that is unlike what one is accustomed to that leaves a society in a bad space. I think this is easily seen in our popular culture. Everything calls for communication and connection. However, almost all people feel like they are missing someone, they feel inexplicably lonely amidst all of the communication and connection devices.