The old order changeth? Paul Sparkes
“As the most completely book-minded people in the world, North Americans would seem to be moving swiftly into new orbits of experience for which their bookishness has not entirely prepared them.” Marshall Mcluhan
Back in the 1960s a man described as both “professor and prophet” (among many other things) created a public storm mostly, it seems to me now, because we couldn’t understand him. This was Alberta-born Marshall Mcluhan, who studied at the University of Manitoba and at Cambridge in England, and who lectured in Wisconsin and in Ontario and who wrote books that did little to expel the confusion over what he was telling us. This phrase was popular: “Marshall Mcluhan, what are you doin?”
The quotation at the top of this column was written by Mcluhan in 1969 — nearly 50 years ago, remember — but it would certainly seem to be referring to the digital/paper contest of today. Other comments of Mcluhan’s will sound equally prophetic.
He did not live a long and seasoned life: 1911-1980. Dying at 69 seems to belie the reputation of prophets as ancient, bearded and wise beyond the necessity to learn more.
I have a pristine copy of Mcluhan’s small, 142-page book “Counter-blast” published in 1969 by Mcclelland and Stewart in Toronto. It is (or, at least, was, any time I thumbed through it) frustrating to the point of making itself a most difficult “read.” For as long as I’ve had it, I have occasionally flipped through it and within minutes poked it back into its dusty resting place.
Of course this is as much a statement about my impatience as a reader as it is about Mcluhan’s studies and discoveries. I never could take the time to try to learn what he was saying. A glance at one of the pages in Counter-blast will probably make my point more understandable. But then, the greater world tells me there is much more to Mcluhan than this. He is said, today, to have foretold the Internet and to have taught us about perception (and that, Dear Reader, is putting it all too simply.)
You have to love this:
In one part of Counter-blast, Mcluhan gives some observations on our behaviour back in the years when the typewriter was new. Here is an extract from one Robert Lincoln O’brien in 1904:
“The invention of the typewriter has given a tremendous impetus to the dictating habit. It is no uncommon thing in the typewriting booths at the Capitol in Washington to see Congressmen in dictating letters use the most vigorous gestures as if the oratorical methods of persuasion could be transmitted to the printed page.”
In yet another part, Mcluhan says “print would seem to have lost much on its monopoly as a channel of information.” Remember, this was committed to paper 48 years ago. But he does see a continuing role for print as a tool in the training of perception. Well, today print is vital to texting (to state the obvious).
You might go so far as to say that print is murdering human-to-human communication. I walked into The Fish Exchange one evening last week all the way from the main doors to the back of the place overlooking the harbour. Tables were aglow with tiny screens. People facing each other at the same table were looking down onto their iphones and were giving them the (index) finger. Yet there was a pleasant din of conversation in the place, so, clearly, some patrons were defying the advance of technology.
I suppose a columnist should really open up a subject and draw a conclusion. This column draws no conclusion. I just marvel at the whole evolving scenario from printed paper to Internet. When it comes right down to it, it’s really not all about the method of thought and idea delivery (as many have quite rightly observed) it is really all about what it is you are trying to put across.
Today in the early 21st century printed paper hangs on tenaciously, despite the millions of backs that have been turned on it since the internet (despite its ghastly side-effects) has come upon us. Last Christmas when this kind of conversation was being bandied about, that is, abandoning paper, books, newspapers and so on in favour of anything digital, a member of the company said to me, “Paul, just suppose we’re all wrong on this digital thing!”
Marshall Mcluhan would have a field day if he came back today.