Understanding McLuhan/Understanding McLuhan (1996)(Voyager)[Mac-PC].iso/pc/mcluhan.dxr/08325_Field_TCGG T90.txt

Text File | 1996-04-10 | 1KB | 16 lines

set of goals.” Riesman made no effort to discover why the
manuscript culture of the ancient and medieval worlds should
not have conferred inner direction, nor why a print culture
should inevitably confer inner direction. That is part of the
business of the present book. But it can be said at once that
“inner direction” depends upon a “fixed point of view.” A stable,
consistent character is one with an unwavering outlook, an
almost hypnotized visual stance, as it were. Manuscripts were
altogether too slow and uneven a matter to provide either a
fixed point of view or the habit of gliding steadily on single
planes of thought and information. As we shall see, manuscript
culture is intensely audile-tactile compared to print culture; and
that means that detached habits of observation are quite
uncongenial to manuscript cultures, whether ancient Egyptian,
Greek, or Chinese or medieval. In place of cool visual
detachment the manuscript world puts empathy and