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Marshall McLuhan – Understanding MEDIA

Almost every revolutionary thinker I’ve come across, seems to substantiate that fact, first and foremost, by crushing his predecessors, McLuhan pushes it even farther, and does not rest until all those who came before him subside into a corner after bashed into a bloody pulp. He stops for no one, exposing to whom ever is left standing, what we probably did not want to hear, “The media is the message”. He is dead on; it’s not about the content, but more about the effects and how profoundly it alters our perception and behavior, and how those effects fit in or contradict the social economy that proceeded it’s arrival.

However, the one thing I choose to point out here is the violence in which this message of media is delivered, and the violence is apparent not only from the speaker, but from the readers, it’s bears the scars of a brut retaliation evident in the introductions and the editors notes. It’s almost like visiting a crime scene, or battlefield of sorts (It wouldn’t hurt to look further to the actual deprecations and critical views). Why such a big provocation, I’ll speculate and say, what happened could perhaps be described as a subconscious defense response, defense of what McLuhan is forcing us to realize, defense against awareness, as he himself explains and illustrates so well. It’s like being scorned for something you didn’t notice you we’re doing. In that sense, a strong response to that kind of revelation usually means it is right.

Marshall McLuhan prides himself for turning on the light switch and revealing the true nature of media, however, by doing so, sent quite a few people to an either paralyzed or flabbergasted state of shock (this is exactly what we pay our therapists not to do). It is perhaps this lack of subtlety that serves him so well, because controversy and provocation sell. Ambiguous, generalized concepts like cool and hot are illusive and inaccurate enough to drag you in, kicking screaming. It all works, and no matter what you end up thinking, you end up thinking! And that was sort of the point.

All of the above does not necessarily discuss the content but rather the effect of the reading. I suppose you could say that McLuhan is the message.