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Understanding McLuhan
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06794_Field_TCUM T359.txt
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1996-04-10
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not show on a map. The truth of a place is in the joy and
the hurt that come from it. I had best not put my trust in
anything as inadequate as a map, he counselled. . . . I
understand now, although I did not at the time, that my
airy and easy sweep of map-traced staggering distances
belittled the journeys he had measured on tired feet. With
my big map-talk, I had effaced the magnitude of his
cargo-laden, heat-weighted treks.
All the words in the world cannot describe an object like a
bucket, although it is possible to tell in a few words how to
make a bucket. This inadequacy of words to convey visual
information about objects was an effectual block to the
development of the Greek and Roman sciences. Pliny the Elder
reported the inability of the Greek and Latin botanists to devise
a means of transmitting information about plants and flowers: