Forsdale: Now we were back with the alphabet. Did the Platonic dialogue boys cotton much to the alphabet?
McLuhan: They certainly—remember Plato accepted Euclid as a basis for entrance requirement for his academy? Let nobody come here who doesn’t know his Euclid. Euclid was one of these first effects of the alphabet. That is, when you pulled out everything except the figure, all the attributes of space and time are pulled out except certain abstract features. Euclid could not have happened before the alphabet and he has never happened in any other country except with the alphabet. China does not have Euclid, nor does Africa, nor India.
