workers and consumers, such as no culture had ever had 
before. That our cultural historians have been oblivious of the 
homogenizing power of typography, and of the irresistible 
strength of homogenized populations, is no credit to them. 
Political scientists have been quite unaware of the effects of 
media anywhere at any time, simply because nobody has been 
willing to study the personal and social effects of media apart 
from their “content.”

     America long ago achieved its Common Market by 
mechanical and literate homogenization of social organization. 
Europe is now getting a unity under the electric auspices of 
compression and interrelation. Just how much homogenization 
via literacy is needed to make an effective producer-consumer 
group in the postmechanical age, in the age of automation, 
nobody has ever asked. For it has never been fully recognized