McLuhan -- Thinking.

After reading through Marshall McLuhan's interview in Playboy, I am left conflicted…

McLuhan's take on the 'western man' seems as much as a diagnosis as it is an observation.
His affection for the rawer emotional states he sees in tribal, pre-phonetic, societies seems unfair to the vast accomplishments and developments that 'rational' thought has afforded us. Where McLuhan draws a line between traditional/tribal thinking and 'post-literate' thinking, I cannot help but feel that McLuhan is deeply infatuated with the idea of a kind of non-thought. Instead of using words to craft logical or rational thought patterns, one can experience these primal and instantaneous emotions in their rawest forms. McLuhan seems to idealize this notion of a man not bound by words, who uses all their senses in 'acoustic space' and does not have necessarily the same inner narration that an alphabet using speaker may have. Is this a good thing? Will this return? McLuhan claims neutrality, although seems to be in favor, which is why I find myself conflicted…

The advent of the printing press, television, the internet and so on have undoubtedly further removed us from feeling these raw emotions, providing us a newer and 'cooler' medium to consume and the means to hyperextend, focus and even analyze our senses. Though with these we have also given the opportunity to refine and develop our communication skills. McLuhan explains tribal communication as 'mesh,' I would describe it as a kind of collective consciousness way of reacting. The tribal man can communicate deeply and intimately with his community, although they are limited to what is in the 'acoustic' world. The tribal man is limited to his god given senses. McLuhan uses the words "emotionally laden," to describe the nature of tribal communications. The literary man, on the other hand, is described as individualistic, logical and ultimately detached. I would actually argue that while the tribal man may be intimate, the medium of television, radio or literature is equally so, if not far more intimate. With the aide of the alphabetic language we are now able to logically and uniformly communicate intense, complex and deep emotional messages unlike ever before. Albeit these emotions may be less raw in the eyes of the expresser, though because the literate man can hyperextend their senses, the perceived emotion may very well be an entire new level of raw. The mediums of television or print or film all allow humans to communicate in entirely new ways that can merge and hyperextend senses that a tribal man may never even comprehend. These insane communicatory mediums allowed immense technological advancement that drastically improved our lives in every conceivable way. McLuhan says himself, without the printing press we don't have mechanized society. Without mechanized society we don't have the means to build the foundation for quality of life we have been granted. One may feel pure emotion and think freely and unhinged in an exclusively verbal community, but would you trust a doctor who knows little outside what your tribe knows? Society may become more 'troubled' with further development of media and communication technology, as MuLuhan claims, but we also begin to further and further rule out natural selection. With technological advances, violence and schizophrenia become the unsolved problems in a world free from polio and smallpox.

Overall, McLuhan makes interesting and intriguing points and there is no denying the importance of being aware of the significant societal changes due to advances and changes in communicatory mediums. Although, the way he diagnoses the 'western man' is upsetting. Even if I agreed with his claims on the adverse effects and psychological wrought that literacy allegedly puts on the human race, the practicality and potential that media allows us FAR outweighs it..