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Understanding McLuhan
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Understanding McLuhan (1996)(Voyager)[Mac-PC].iso
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08748_Field_TCGG T513.txt
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1996-04-10
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949b
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15 lines
The celebrated “To be or not to be” of Hamlet is the
scholastic sic et non of Abelard translated into the new visual
culture where it has a reverse significance. Under oral scholastic
conditions the sic et non is a mode of experiencing the very
sinuosities of the dialectical movements of the inquiring mind.
It corresponds to the verbal sensing of the poetic process in
Dante and the dolce stil nuovo . But in Montaigne and Descartes
it is not the process but the product that is sought. And the
method of arresting the mind by snapshot, which Montaigne
calls la peinture de la pensée , is itself the method of doubt.
Hamlet presents two pictures, two views of life. His soliloquy is
an indispensable point of reorientation between the old oral
and new visual cultures. He concludes with an explicit
recognition of the contrast between the old and the new,
putting “conscience” against “resolution”: