Understanding McLuhan/Understanding McLuhan (1996)(Voyager)[Mac-PC].iso/pc/mcluhan.dxr/07234_Field_TCUM T799.txt

Text File | 1996-04-10 | 930b | 16 lines

the discovery of lineal perspective in the arts. Navigators took a
long time to accept the possibility of space as uniform,
connected, and continuous. Today in physics, as in painting
and sculpture, progress consists in giving up the idea of space
as either uniform, continuous, or connected. Visuality has lost
its primacy.

     In the Second World War the marksman was replaced by
automatic weapons fired blindly in what were called “perimeters
of fire” or “fire lanes.” The old-timers fought to retain the bolt-
action Springfield which encouraged single-shot accuracy and
sighting. Spraying the air with lead in a kind of tactual embrace
was found to be good by night, as well as by day, and sighting
was unnecessary. At this stage of technology, the literate man
is somewhat in the position of the old-timers who backed the
Springfield rifle against perimeter fire. It is this same visual