home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
Understanding McLuhan
/
Understanding McLuhan (1996)(Voyager)[Mac-PC].iso
/
pc
/
mcluhan.dxr
/
08394_Field_TCGG T159.txt
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1996-04-10
|
994b
|
16 lines
society possessing the alphabet can translate any adjacent
cultures into its alphabetic mode. But this is a one-way
process. No non-alphabetic culture can take over an alphabetic
one, because the alphabet cannot be assimilated; it can only
liquidate or reduce. However, in the electronic age we may have
discovered the limits of the alphabet technology. It need no
longer seem strange that peoples like the Greeks and Romans,
who had experienced the alphabet, should also have been
driven in the direction of conquest and organization-at-a-
distance. Harold Innis, in Empire and Communications , was the
first to pursue this theme and to explain in detail the simple
truth of the Cadmus myth. The Greek King Cadmus, who
introduced the phonetic alphabet to Greece, was said to have
sown the dragon’s teeth and that they sprang up armed men.
(The dragon’s teeth may allude to the old hieroglyphic forms.)
Innis also explained why print causes nationalism and not