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Understanding McLuhan
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08382_Field_TCGG T147.txt
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1996-03-19
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925b
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16 lines
The method of invention, as Edgar Poe demonstrated in
his “Philosophy of Composition,” is simply to begin with the
solution of the problem or with the effect intended. Then one
backtracks, step by step, to the point from which one must
begin in order to reach the solution or effect. Such is the
method of the detective story, of the symbolist poem, and of
modern science. It is, however, the twentieth century step
beyond this method of invention which is needed for
understanding the origin and the action of such forms as the
wheel or the alphabet. And that step is not the backtracking
from product to starting point, but the following of process in
isolation from product. To follow the contours of process as in
psychoanalysis provides the only means of avoiding the
product of process, namely neurosis or psychosis.
It is the purpose of the present book to study primarily