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Understanding McLuhan
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Understanding McLuhan (1996)(Voyager)[Mac-PC].iso
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06518_Field_TCUM T83.txt
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1996-04-10
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16 lines
communication, cigarettes, cosmetics, and soap (cosmetic
removers) that bear much of the burden of the upkeep of the
media in general. As electric information levels rise, almost any
kind of material will serve any kind of need or function, forcing
the intellectual more and more into the role of social command
and into the service of production.
It was Julien Benda’s Great Betrayal that helped to clarify
the new situation in which the intellectual suddenly holds the
whip hand in society. Benda saw that the artists and
intellectuals who had long been alienated from power, and who
since Voltaire had been in opposition, had now been drafted for
service in the highest echelons of decision-making. Their great
betrayal was that they had surrendered their autonomy and
had become the flunkies of power, as the atomic physicist at
the present moment is the flunky of the war lords.