home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
Understanding McLuhan
/
Understanding McLuhan (1996)(Voyager)[Mac-PC].iso
/
pc
/
mcluhan.dxr
/
08297_Field_TCGG T62.txt
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1996-04-10
|
987b
|
16 lines
was set for words to lose their magic powers and
vulnerabilities. Why so?
I developed the theme in an earlier article with
reference to Africa, that the nonliterate rural population
lives largely in a world of sound, in contrast to western
Europeans who live largely in a world of vision. Sounds are
in a sense dynamic things, or at least are always
indicators of dynamic things—of movements, events,
activities, for which man, when largely unprotected from
the hazards of life in the bush or the veldt, must be ever
on the alert. . . . Sounds lose much of this significance in
western Europe, where man often develops, and must
develop, a remarkable ability to disregard them. Whereas
for Europeans, in general, “seeing is believing,” for rural
Africans reality seems to reside far more in what is heard
and what is said. . . . Indeed, one is constrained to believe