Herbert Marshall McLuhan was a Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar – a professor of English literature, a literary critic, a rhetorician, and, above all, a communications theorist. His work is considered one of the major cornerstones of the study of media theory. Born in Alberta, Canada, McLuhan attended the University of Manitoba for his undergraduate but was truly influenced in his graduate work at the University of Cambridge where he studied New Criticism which advocated a close reading and attention to the texts themselves, while rejecting criticism based on extra-textual sources, especially an author’s biography.
McLuhan’s interest with New Criticism led him to one of his major concepts, "the medium is the message." This concept, in short, states that the form of a medium embeds itself in the message. He proposes that media themselves, not the content they carry, should be the focus of study; he said that the medium affects the society in which it plays a role not only by the content delivered over the medium, but by the characteristics of the medium itself. Therefore, McLuhan argued that regardless of what is on television, the effects on society would be identical. His other main concept was that of "the global village,"which explains how the electric communications media restores Western civilization through different features expressed by oral cultures. The mass media is essential in disseminating these ideas and in achieving the major goal which is to build consensus through generating public understanding.
What would McLuhan have to say about today’s society which values technology perhaps more than any other age before it? What would McLuhan have to say about YouTube or blogs? It is a society which is truly globalizing, disseminating ideas and revolutions thoroughly throughout the world. As McLuhan said, the technological age brings about a reinstituting of man’s participation in society that the literary culture of the early west took away. Technology today is creating an ever-growing global village while the media we use more and more (the internet) is shaping society as its predecessors have done before it.
Here is a video essay I helped create which stems from McLuhan's "medium is the message" theory though it branches off into a broader sort of message:
When suffering from bouts of late night (or early morning) insomnia, nothing puts me to sleep like the smiles and promises that flash across the television screen during an infomercial. Most of us have seen them--infomercials that offer amazing deals on things we all must have, and home shopping channels that we must call right away to ensure we get the item we need before it sells out. When we see that the seller is "throwing in free gifts," reducing the number of payments if we call within the next three minutes, and boasting high customer satisfaction through "unscripted" testimonials, it's hard not to fall for such attractive offers. Each of us starts to tell ourselves, "Yes, I really do need a steam cleaner," and "I've always wanted to make my own ice cream." And of course, we're always in luck because for a limited time only, the handy steam cleaner of your dreams only costs three easy payments of $39.99 and the easy-to-use ice cream maker comes with a free, revolutionary ice cream scooper.
Why are we lured so easily into buying things we just don't need, or even want? Has our culture become so rooted in materialism that we cannot make the distinction between wants and needs anymore? Bill McKibben in The Age of Missing Information says that, "On these channels—the shopping networks, the channels that devote half their day to the ‘infomercials’—you are more and more encouraged to buy simply because the very act of buying will make you feel good” (123). This is an insightful thought that not only makes me think about where human desire might stem from, but also about people's decision-making abilities in an economic sense.
One assumption in economics is that when consumers buy something, they make a logical decision based on perceived value and the belief that the benefit they will receive will be greater than the cost incurred to purchase the item. However, many times, consumers don't exactly know if the cost of buying an item will be less than the benefit they will receive from it. This is a topic discussed frequently in the field of behavioral economics. In this relatively new field, psychology and economics meet, leading economists to better understand some of the economic decisions people make everyday that are seem irrational.
Here are some links to interesting articles about the behavioral economics:
Which side are you on? Even in today’s headlines, the historically caustic relationship between science and religion is evident. Yet are the two really so incompatible?
Some of the tension between these two belief systems is evident simply through their definitions. Science is defined as a state of knowing, religion, a state of belief (Oxford English Dictionary, 1989). Furthermore, with the break-neck pace of technology, science is creating possibilities that, while physically possible, are thought to be morally wrong. Some argue that this dichotomy is harmonious, that the two balance and complement each other.
McKibben supports this in his book, Age of Missing Information when he describes a lava flow that wipes out an entire village: "I think anyone who has worked around the lava flow has a feeling that there is a power our there greater than ourselves, and that is greater than something we can quantify with our numbers and the data we collect. There is nothing about Pele that is incompatible with science… Science hasn't undermined the feeling that God is present in the natural world- if anything, it’s sharpened it, shown scientists ever more sharply the limits of human understanding, continually increased their respect for the harmony around us." (93) This sentiment has been echoed by many prominent scientists, even though less than 10% of them believe in God (Eukland, 2007). Sir Bacon, Galileo, Kelvin, and Einstein all echoed the aforementioned quote. There are examples in the scientific and natural world that are awe-inspiring, that make one experience what Freud called an “oceanic feeling”, that something bigger is out there. One of the most intriguing of these examples is the Fibbonacci numbers and the golden ratio.
The Fibonacci numbers work by beginning with zero, then one, and each subsequent number is the sum of the two previous numbers in the following way: 1/1=1, 2/1=2, 3/2=1.5…, 5/3=1.6666…, 8/5=1.6, 13/8=1.625, 21/13=1.61538. As the sequence proceeds, it approaches Phi/the golden ratio (1.61803399). This seemingly arbitrary number is seen all throughout the natural, art, and architecture worlds. Some examples where the golden ratio is found are shells, pine cones, the breeding pattern of bees, the Vetruvian man, the Mona Lisa, Michahelangelo’s Holy Family, the Great Pyramid, and the Parthenon . Some say that DaVinci was the first to apply this golden ratio to the perfect face, and how it is seen in the faces of those society considers beautiful.
All these examples, however, are from the past. There are no examples of this ratio in most modern art. And as time has gone by, less and less people believe in God. McKibben points out a possible explanation for this phenomenon “only with distance from the natural, larger world that this recognition (worship) begins to dim; in ancient forests, he says, there are no atheists… the awareness of god’s presence is and ever has been the most persistent specific trait of our species (93). Is this true? Does modern society distance us from nature? From religion? And is this inclination to believe innate? A previously mentioned statistic stated that only 10% of scientists believed in God, but 66% consider them to be spiritual. This is an overwhelming trend, of people moving away from organized religion and towards spirituality. What does it mean, and where do religion and science fit into our society? Your life?
More things to consider:
· The Embers and the Stars a book by philosopher Dr. Erazim Kohak, about reflections obtained from building a cottage in the woods (parallels with Annie Dillard?). Dr. Kohak discusses nature and human’s role in creation.
Recently, at the suggestion of a friend, I wandered over to a site called I Power - I am the revolution which gave me a new found respect for media sharing and social networking sites on the internet. This medium is based on three principles of being open minded, active thinking and putting your voice into vision. Currently there are 12, 015 members of IPower hailing from Australia to Latvia to Saudi Arabia and Malaysia all sharing videos, blogs and pictures about their daily lives, what they think of the world, happiness, globalization and humanity as whole. Featured groups that member can join and have forums about include "Questions for the opposite sex," "Is 9-11 still an inside job?," "The philosophers of the new renaissance" and most popular, "Net neutrality watchdog." The general themes I noticed were discussions of conspiracy theories, new philosphies that challenge our capitalist world economy, a general concern the use of technology to beat the system and unite on all front and that someone or something is trying to keep change from happening. All relevent themes in the Cyberpunk manifesto/movement. I speculate that cyberpunk ideals have spread without its followers even recognizing they are part of it.
Cyberpunk is a term crafted by Bruce Bethke and the title for his 1983 science fiction short story "Cyberpunk" about advanced science and informational technology coupled with a radical change in the social order. Bethke's story was followed by William Gibson's 1984 novel Neuromancer where he coined the term "cyberspace" for the artificial digital realms of the Web: " `Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathe- matical concepts... A graphic representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system. Un- thinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding...' "
The term "cyberpunk" is the welding of the terms cybernetics, which is science studying control and communication, furthermore, the feedback loop that gives a controller information on the result of its actions andpunk, which sprang from the youth movement of the 1970s based on counterculture and rebellion. The two combined merge technology and individualism, which often reveals usually dark ideas about the two in the near future. Themes in the genre include a negative ipact of technology on humanity, the fusion of man and machine, corporate control over society, stories that focus on the underground and ubiquitous access to informaiton. The genre has also been a huge part of cinema as well with such cyberpunk films including, A Clockwork Orange, Blade Runner, Twelve Monkeys and Bicentennial Man.
William Gibson has credited Marge Piercy's 1976 novel Woman on the Edge of Time as the birthplace of cyberpunk and it is not a shock to see why. The book deals with two alternate worlds: a potential future one where the main character sees the social and environmental revolutions of her time fulfilled and there exists equality (though war remains), and a contemporary world where the elite homogenize and subdue the population with drugs and try to control society through technology. Piercy's critiques ring loud on what is the appropriate use and ethical limits of technology, what does it mean to be human and what does life mean, but where do these questions come from? How have any cyberpunk authors in any medium, via book, movie or blog formulated their passions around answering these questions?
Marge Piercy has had a pretty troubling early life that may have greatly shaped how she saw the world including the murder of her grandfather, contracting a case of the German measles when she almost died and life on the brink of poverty in Chicago after leaving her first husband. It is possible that life experiences shape the way you see injustice and pain around you, and for cyberpunks, the best way to cope may be to find ways to work within and against the system you are trying to fight. By this, the very use of technology (internet especially) can connect us all to fight a rebellion against a corrupted world order increasingly focused on consumerism and surveillance. Listen here to see how Marge Piercy herself critiques the Patriot Act by posting a reading of her poem on YouTube:
As the Manifesto reads "the soicety which surrounds us is clogged with conservancy pulling everything and everybody to itself, while it sinks slowly in the quicksands of time." Cyberpunks have a rebellious, negative outlook on the state of the world because, the state of the world is negative, rampant with chaos, uncertainty, inequality and injustice. What makes you get to this realization is what I theorize may be biographical and experiential but to the extent you utilize the internet to surf the chaos and cope with these burdens is the degree to which you are in the movement. Are you a cyberpunk?
Herbert Marshall McLuhan was a Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar – a professor of English literature, a literary critic, a rhetorician, and, above all, a communications theorist. His work is considered one of the major cornerstones of the study of media theory. Born in Alberta, Canada, McLuhan attended the University of Manitoba for his undergraduate but was truly influenced in his graduate work at the University of Cambridge where he studied New Criticism which advocated a close reading and attention to the texts themselves, while rejecting criticism based on extra-textual sources, especially an author’s biography.
which explains how the electric communications media restores Western civilization through different features expressed by oral cultures. The mass media is essential in disseminating these ideas and in achieving the major goal which is to build consensus through generating public understanding.
