During the coming weeks, we present a selection of our favorite pages from the Next Nature book. This week a page that is an homage to Marshall McLuhan, who is one of the most inspirational intellectuals for us. What would he have tweeted, had he been able to engage with this ‘social’ medium in our time?


As the new media theorist would say, “the medium (is more important than) the message.” Twitter may be text, but it’s really an oral and auditory system in disguise: instantaneous, encompassing, and social. As McLuhan would argue, micro-blogging is just another symptom of a society moving back to the tribe. The quotes on this page are adapted from “The Playboy Interview: Marshall McLuhan,” © Playboy Magazine, March 1969. Here are a few:


ElectricMan – Marshall McLuhan

For the past 3,500 years, the effects of media — whether it’s speech, writing, printing, photography or television — have been overlooked by social observers ...

42 years ago


ElectricMan – Marshall McLuhan

Most people cling to what I call the rearview-mirror view of their world.

42 years ago


ElectricMan – Marshall McLuhan

Now man is beginning to wear his brain outside his skull and his nerves outside his skin.

42 years ago


ElectricMan – Marshall McLuhan

Man becomes the sex organs of the machine world just as the bee is of the plant world, permitting it to reproduce and evolve to higher forms.

42 years ago


.......................................................................................................................


Featured here are pages 424-425 from the book Next Nature: Nature Changes Along with Us. More information about the book can be found here.

Enjoying this story? Show it to us!

0 Likes

Share your thoughts and join the technology debate!

Be the first to comment

More like this