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Understanding McLuhan
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06781_Field_TCUM T346.txt
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1996-04-10
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934b
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16 lines
knowledge has lifted the mystery surrounding the machine.
As contrasted with the mere tool, the machine is an
extension or outering of a process. The tool extends the fist,
the nails, the teeth, the arm. The wheel extends the feet in
rotation or sequential movement. Printing, the first complete
mechanization of a handicraft, breaks up the movement of the
hand into a series of discrete steps that are as repeatable as
the wheel is rotary. From this analytic sequence came the
assembly line principle, but the assembly line is now obsolete in
the electric age because synchronization is no longer
sequential. By electric tapes, synchronization of any number of
different acts can be simultaneous. Thus the mechanical
principle of analysis in series has come to an end. Even the
wheel has now come to an end in principle, although the
mechanical stratum of our culture carries it still as part of an