Understanding McLuhan/Understanding McLuhan (1996)(Voyager)[Mac-PC].iso/pc/mcluhan.dxr/08332_Field_TCGG T97.txt

Text File | 1996-04-10 | 889b | 16 lines

     his simplicity. He who has lost his simplicity becomes
     unsure in the strivings of his soul. Uncertainty in the
     strivings of the soul is something which does not agree
     with honest sense. It is not that I do not know of such
     things; I am ashamed to use them.” ’

     Clearly this ancient tale contains a great deal of wisdom,
for “uncertainty in the strivings of the soul” is perhaps one of
the aptest descriptions of man’s condition in our modern crisis;
technology, the machine, has spread through the world to a
degree that our Chinese sage could not even have suspected.

     The sort of “simplicity” envisaged by the sage is a more
complex and subtle product than anything that occurs in a
society with specialized technology and sense life. But perhaps
the real point of the anecdote is that it appealed to Heisenberg.