MARSHALL MCLUHAN AND THE INTERNET.

MARSHALL MCLUHAN AND THE INTERNET. When people speculate on the effect the internet and cellphones will have on ways of thinking —and especially when they make comparisons to Gutenberg’s invention of moveable type—they are reflecting the influence of Marshall McLuhan, even though McLuhan died in 1980. This wikipedia article on THE GUTENBERG GALAZY: The Making of Typographic Man says that for McLuhan: “The invention of movable type was the decisive moment in the change from a culture in which all the senses partook of a common interplay to a tyranny of the visual. He also argued that the development of the printing press led to the creation of nationalism, dualism, domination of rationalism, automatisation of scientific research, uniformation and standardisation of culture and alienation of individuals.”—which giveS an idea of the scope of the changes which a change in technology like the printing press—or the internet—can bring about. (I posted here about Mcluhan’s theories and on his insight that watching a baseball game in a domed stadium would be like being inside a pinball machine.)