by his milieu, and by people engaged in living the mechanism he 
talks. Today in the new electronic milieu Descartes gets short 
shrift and people now give to the unconscious the same 
fragmentary attention and acceptance that they had 
previously given to the bright segmental moments of Cartesian 
awareness. Is it not possible to emancipate ourselves from the 
subliminal operation of our own technologies? Is not the 
essence of education civil defence against media fall-out? Since 
the effort has never been made in any culture the answer may 
seem to lie in doubt. There may be some hitherto unsuspected 
and wise motive for mental sleep and self-hypnosis in man 
which the confrontation of the effects of media technology 
would reveal. However this may be, it is plain that the pseudo-
dichotomies and visual quantities imposed on our psychology 
by print began in the seventeenth century to assume the 
character of consumer packages or “systems” of philosophy.