home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
Understanding McLuhan
/
Understanding McLuhan (1996)(Voyager)[Mac-PC].iso
/
pc
/
mcluhan.dxr
/
06598_Field_TCUM T163.txt
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1996-04-10
|
934b
|
16 lines
City in History tells the strange tale of how the New England
town was able to carry out the pattern of the medieval ideal
city because it was able to dispense with walls and to mix town
and country. When the technology of a time is powerfully
thrusting in one direction, wisdom may well call for a
countervailing thrust. The implosion of electric energy in our
century cannot be met by explosion or expansion, but it can be
met by decentralism and the flexibility of multiple small centres.
For example, the rush of students into our universities is not
explosion but implosion. And the needful strategy to encounter
this force is not to enlarge the university, but to create
numerous groups of autonomous colleges in place of our
centralized university plant that grew up on the lines of
European government and nineteenth-century industry.
In the same way the excessive tactile effects of the TV