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Understanding McLuhan
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07052_Field_TCUM T617.txt
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protest, “But I do visualize on the telephone!” When he has a
chance to try the experiment deliberately, he will find that he
simply can’t visualize while phoning, though all literate people
try to do so and, therefore, believe they are succeeding. But
that is not what most irritates the literate and visualizing
Westerner about the telephone. Some people can scarcely talk
to their best friends on the phone without becoming angry. The
telephone demands complete participation, unlike the written
and printed page. Any literate man resents such a heavy
demand for his total attention, because he has long been
accustomed to fragmentary attention. Similarly, literate man
can learn to speak other languages only with great difficulty,
for learning a language calls for participation of all the senses
at once. On the other hand, our habit of visualizing renders the
literate Westerner helpless in the nonvisual world of advanced
physics. Only the visceral and audile-tactile Teuton and Slav