home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
Understanding McLuhan
/
Understanding McLuhan (1996)(Voyager)[Mac-PC].iso
/
pc
/
mcluhan.dxr
/
06646_Field_TCUM T211.txt
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1996-04-10
|
924b
|
16 lines
human interassociation tend to improve by acceleration. Speed,
in turn, accentuates problems of form and structure. The older
arrangements had not been made with a view to such speeds,
and people begin to sense a draining-away of life values as they
try to make the old physical forms adjust to the new and
speedier movement. These problems, however, are not new.
Julius Caesar’s first act upon assuming power was to restrict
the night movement of wheeled vehicles in the city of Rome in
order to permit sleep. Improved transport in the Renaissance
turned the medieval walled towns into slums.
Prior to the considerable diffusion of power through
alphabet and papyrus, even the attempts of kings to extend
their rule in spatial terms were opposed at home by the priestly
bureaucracies. Their complex and unwieldy media of stone
inscription made wide-ranging empires appear very dangerous