beautifulspam,
Interesting. In Hofstadter’s “Godel, Escher, Bach” three versions of Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky” are given–English, French and German. It’s a riot to read and compare them! Translation, even of nonsense syllables, appears to depend on what meanings the verbal or written symbols evoke and whether or not this meaning can be communicated. I have ideas about that as well as about Chinese philosophy, which is not at all inscrutible. I don’t think this thread is the place to discuss these ideas. Start one on problems of translation or other language issues and I’ll gladly respond.
I just bought a cheap copy of “The Medium is the Message” and I’m weary about reading it because it is pretty obvious that McLuhan is a quack who talks out of his own ass. Saying that, his idea that the medium is the message is pretty interesting, as interesting as his idea that technology is an extension of man (which influenced my favorite film director David Cronenberg).
Basically, I believe that even though he’s a quack, he is very important for two reasons. 1. because he made us look at technology as an extension of ourselves as opposed to some sort of alien for the first time in history and 2. he makes us realize the importance of exploring the medium to see it’s effects on us for the first time in history too.
Basically, around the time he was famous, people were discussing the effects of the content of television as opposed to the medium itself. They were asking “well is it too violent?” etc. etc. McLuhan said that this is silly, the content is the same no matter what the medium, it’s the medium itself we should be looking at to see how it’s shaped our life.
Technology is an extension of us, he says, which I think is true to an extent. The written word, an extension of the voice, making it capable to share ideas with others. The written word, an extension of the mind, making you capable of storing things you might forget otherwise. The car an extension of the foot to travel vaster distances in a safer manner. In short, technology is an extension of us, it is us adapting to our environment and making our environment adapt for us.
As for the importance of looking at television’s effects via exploring the medium itself instead of the content, this is very important. Take the computer for an example. It’s content is vast, but there’s so much that there’s information overload and we jump from place to place, so we take in little bits of information from all over the place and gain no real knowledge whatsoever.
Sure McLuhan may have been talking out of his ass, but I think he made two very important insights.