Understanding McLuhan/Understanding McLuhan (1996)(Voyager)[Mac-PC].iso/pc/mcluhan.dxr/08400_Field_TCGG T165.txt

Text File | 1996-04-10 | 965b | 16 lines

     In The Greeks and the Irrational , E. R. Dodds discusses the
emotional instability and manias of the Homeric heroes: “And
we may also ask ourselves why a people so civilized, clear-
headed, and rational as the Ionians did not eliminate from their
national epics these links with Borneo and the primitive past,
just as they eliminated the fear of the dead . . . .” (p. 13) But it
is his next page that is especially helpful:

      “His own behavior. . . has become alien to him. He cannot
     understand it. It is for him no part of his Ego.” This is a
     perfectly true observation, and its relevance to some of
     the phenomena we have been considering cannot, I think,
     be doubted. Nilsson is also, I believe, right in holding that
     experiences of this sort played a part—along with other
     elements, such as the Minoan tradition of protecting
     goddesses—in building up that machinery of physical