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Understanding McLuhan
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Understanding McLuhan (1996)(Voyager)[Mac-PC].iso
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08339_Field_TCGG T104.txt
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1996-04-10
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a vast Alexandrian library the world has become a computer, an
electronic brain, exactly as in an infantile piece of science
fiction. And as our senses have gone outside us, Big Brother
goes inside. So, unless aware of this dynamic, we shall at once
move into a phase of panic terrors, exactly befitting a small
world of tribal drums, total interdependence, and superimposed
co-existence. It is easy to perceive signs of such panic in
Jacques Barzun who manifests himself as a fearless and
ferocious Luddite in his The House of the Intellect . Sensing that
all he holds dear stems from the operation of the alphabet on
and through our minds, he proposes the abolition of all modern
art, science, and philanthropy. This trio extirpated, he feels we
can slap down the lid on Pandora’s box. At least Barzun
localizes his problem even if he has no clue as to the kind of
agency exerted by these forms. Terror is the normal state of
any oral society, for in it everything affects everything all the