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Understanding McLuhan
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Understanding McLuhan (1996)(Voyager)[Mac-PC].iso
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07216_Field_TCUM T781.txt
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1996-04-10
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maximum interplay of all the senses. For Western man,
however, the all-embracing extension had occurred by means of
phonetic writing, which is a technology for extending the sense
of sight. All nonphonetic forms of writing are, by contrast,
artistic modes that retain much variety of sensuous
orchestration. Phonetic writing, alone, has the power of
separating and fragmenting the senses and of sloughing off
the semantic complexities. The TV image reverses this literate
process of analytic fragmentation of sensory life.
The visual stress on continuity, uniformity, and
connectedness, as it derives from literacy, confronts us with
the great technological means of implementing continuity and
lineality by fragmented repetition. The ancient world found this
means in the brick, whether for wall or road. The repetitive,
uniform brick, indispensable agent of road and wall, of cities