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Understanding McLuhan
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Understanding McLuhan (1996)(Voyager)[Mac-PC].iso
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08539_Field_TCGG T304.txt
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1996-04-10
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917b
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16 lines
can find merely by taking a book from a shelf. When a
large proportion of a population is illiterate and books are
scarce, memories are often tenacious to a degree outside
modern European experience. Indian students are able to
learn a text-book by heart and to reproduce it word for
word in an examination room; sacred texts are preserved
intact by oral transmission alone. ‘It is said that if all the
written and printed copies of the Rig-Veda were lost, the
text could be restored at once with complete accuracy.’
This text is about as long as the Iliad and Odyssey
combined. Russian and Jugoslav oral poetry is recited by
minstrels who show great powers both of memory and
improvisation.
But the more fundamental reason for imperfect recall is
that with print there is more complete separation of the visual