Forsdale: So in an oral culture, what you and I are doing here, this does not have the same quality as if we were talking on the telephone because there’s—
McLuhan: We have figure-ground here. And interplay is between figure and ground, which is called gestalt. Incidentally, apropos the hemispheres of the brain, the right hemisphere is the gestalt side of the brain, the figure-ground side. The left hemisphere is the figure without ground. Abstract. There is one side of the brain which is able to perform, non-gestalt, abstractly, figure minus ground. And that is called the rational side, ridiculously. It’s merely the abstract side. The abstract side of the brain, the left hemisphere, is figure without ground. It is logical and lineal and connected. It has classification, places to put things. It has syntax, grammar, order, which is all figure
