home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
Understanding McLuhan
/
Understanding McLuhan (1996)(Voyager)[Mac-PC].iso
/
mac
/
McLuhan
/
MCLUHAN.DXR
/
07083_Field_TCUM T648.txt
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1996-04-10
|
897b
|
16 lines
to the waltzing before Waterloo. To the eighteenth century and
to the age of Napoleon, the citizen armies seemed to be an
individualistic release from the feudal framework of courtly
hierarchies. Hence the association of waltz with noble savage,
meaning no more than freedom from status and hierarchic
deference. The waltzers were all uniform and equal, having free
movement in any part of the hall. That this was the Romantic
idea of the life of the noble savage now seems odd, but the
Romantics knew as little about real savages as they did about
assembly lines.
In our own century the arrival of jazz and ragtime was
also heralded as the invasion of the bottom-wagging native.
The indignant tended to appeal from jazz to the beauty of the
mechanical and repetitive waltz that had once been greeted as
pure native dancing. If jazz is considered as a break with