home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
Understanding McLuhan
/
Understanding McLuhan (1996)(Voyager)[Mac-PC].iso
/
pc
/
mcluhan.dxr
/
06620_Field_TCUM T185.txt
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1996-04-10
|
918b
|
16 lines
and traditional world of the tribal word into the cool and
uniform visual medium. Many centuries of ideogrammic use
have not threatened the seamless web of family and tribal
subtleties of Chinese society. On the other hand, a single
generation of alphabetic literacy suffices in Africa today, as in
Gaul two thousand years ago, to release the individual initially,
at least, from the tribal web. This fact has nothing to do with
the content of the alphabetized words; it is the result of the
sudden breach between the auditory and the visual experience
of man. Only the phonetic alphabet makes such a sharp
division in experience, giving to its user an eye for an ear, and
freeing him from the tribal trance of resonating word magic and
the web of kinship.
It can be argued, then, that the phonetic alphabet, alone,
is the technology that has been the means of creating “civilized