Marshall McLuhan observed, "Fire provides a curious opportunity for sharing and involvement. For example, if two people are sitting in a room, carrying on a conversation, they are usually comfortable as long as one of them is talking. But if there is a sudden pause, or lull, in the conversation, both of them will begin to feel uncomfortable if the pause lasts for more than about 10 seconds. They have difficulty handling the silence. If there happens to be a fireplace in the room, however – and there’s a fire going in it – those same two people can sit there for 15 or 20 minutes without saying a word, and not feel uncomfortable at all. The fire provides a means of silent communication and involvement."
By 1975, Marshall McLuhan declared "all the future is here, it is not coming." He also stated, "Ads are the cave art of the 20th century." However the TV generation was not a consumer generation as the generation had seen it all and had it all and its effects. "They’re not interested in old ideas, old values. But with the depression will come a return to all these old values. The young are already becoming old-fashioned. You see evidence of it now (in 1975).
"I always predict things that have already happened. That's how you get a reputation as a prophet. I don't have theories. I simply watch what's going on. I just predict what has happened. In the '70s we'll see a huge return to the hackneyed ways of our forefathers. The young, who are adept at role playing, move easily from one culture to another. Easy glum, easy glow.
"In the electric environment you don't have objectives. You are there already. When you're going at the speed of light you can't think of a goal you don't have. You've already achieved it. This mucks up industry. In place of goals we have roles. Role playing turns life into a game, the sort of amenities the wealthy have are now (in 1975) available to the middle class. They've all seen marble halls and played the roles of the rich. The superwealthy people in the world are jokes."
Marshall McLuhan also made the point to the 'Los Angeles Times' in 1978, "Children using TV for dialog is a very revolutionary step. At the speed of light the same information is available everywhere at the same moment. Our children understand that. And they are a little puzzled by the prison houses they are locked up in the schools. The greatest invention of our time is the instant replay. We do it in sports, fun and games. But it is going to become, 'What did you say again professor?' That is recognition, not just cognition. It is a huge step."
Math and reading tests measured "only the left hemisphere of the brain. The right side of genius and artistic gifts are not capable of being measured by anything educators have designed." Television was primarily right hemisphere medium and that "as it moves up to more and more dominance, educators are up against a very tough problem."
In October 1970, Maurice McLuhan stood in for Marshall McLuhan to talk to the teachers who filled the auditorium at Watkins Hall on the University of California campus in Riverside. "A new technology destroys the old and retrieves the ancient and turns the old into an art form. (The) electronic technology has destroyed, or is in the process of destroying the old and has retrieved the ancient. We're back into the element of the occult – ESP – the horoscope – reincarnation. I'll try to clarify and when I can't, don't be dismayed. Go back to the source."
Children in 1970 were "learning in all direction. There are no goals. They're going to do their thing. The child in the playpen watching TV is getting in 10 seconds the information it took you (the teachers) 10 pages to write." Hence when teachers used old patterns, "one subject at a time, one line at a time, one line of information, he (the child) is turned off."
Maurice McLuhan believed the children in 1970 were growing up in an audiovisual world that had destroyed individualism (the written word). There was a new tribalism (TV) that had created "a hidden environment we're not even aware of." The movie, with the light coming from a projector behind the moviegoer, "becomes an extension of your vision." However on television, "the viewer becomes the screen. That iconoscope is tattooing the vision right here on your body … It has drawn us all in as participants – as actors."
Mankind was moving into "audio space. It's where the kids are at. We notice that men are starting to use scent. The sense of smell is coming back. We're moving into a different kind of space, and we've got to know where it's at. If you're watching a train recede down the track, what grows smaller? Your chance of catching it. You learn distance in terms of touch. The tactical sense organizes all the other senses. Did you know the difference between acoustical space and visual space? I don't. The acoustical space center is everywhere. The margin is nowhere. Visual space – you are the center."
The new generation would live in a "hunter society" because they would be hunting, rather than moving toward goals. "The teacher, like the bricks and mortar, is no longer necessary. You are important, but only as a resource person. Only a resource … Kids – put the hardware in their hands." Some teachers were "Apollo program Ph.D's" unemployable when their particular project had shut down. "They're useless in our society. That's why they're (the youngsters) hunters in our society. The hunter is the guy with a patch on one of his eyes. True Grit. With only one eye you've got to use that eye."
Children in 1970 were "learning in all direction. There are no goals. They're going to do their thing. The child in the playpen watching TV is getting in 10 seconds the information it took you (the teachers) 10 pages to write." Hence when teachers used old patterns, "one subject at a time, one line at a time, one line of information, he (the child) is turned off."
Maurice McLuhan believed the children in 1970 were growing up in an audiovisual world that had destroyed individualism (the written word). There was a new tribalism (TV) that had created "a hidden environment we're not even aware of." The movie, with the light coming from a projector behind the moviegoer, "becomes an extension of your vision." However on television, "the viewer becomes the screen. That iconoscope is tattooing the vision right here on your body … It has drawn us all in as participants – as actors."
Mankind was moving into "audio space. It's where the kids are at. We notice that men are starting to use scent. The sense of smell is coming back. We're moving into a different kind of space, and we've got to know where it's at. If you're watching a train recede down the track, what grows smaller? Your chance of catching it. You learn distance in terms of touch. The tactical sense organizes all the other senses. Did you know the difference between acoustical space and visual space? I don't. The acoustical space center is everywhere. The margin is nowhere. Visual space – you are the center."
The new generation would live in a "hunter society" because they would be hunting, rather than moving toward goals. "The teacher, like the bricks and mortar, is no longer necessary. You are important, but only as a resource person. Only a resource … Kids – put the hardware in their hands." Some teachers were "Apollo program Ph.D's" unemployable when their particular project had shut down. "They're useless in our society. That's why they're (the youngsters) hunters in our society. The hunter is the guy with a patch on one of his eyes. True Grit. With only one eye you've got to use that eye."
Television, Marshall McLuhan made the argument in 1977, "It has wiped out politics. All forms of legal and logical connectedness are dissolving, melting away. People are now going with the intuitive, the mythological, the image. On TV, a political party or a policy pales beside the image of the tribal leader (in soap operas referred to as patriarch or matriarch such as Mother Forrester on 'The Bold And The Beautiful').
"Richard Nixon looked liked himself, just Nixon, so he was no good on the air. But Jimmy Carter is a tribal image, the first tribal president in American history. He looks like the typical big Southern boy, the guy with the fishing pole and straw hat. He has loads of charisma. He’s Huck Finn. Charisma, by the way, means looking like a lot of other people."
"The West is going East and inward, even as the East is going West and outward … Private, separate, individual Western man, with his outer objectives and goals, was long counterpointed against the third world of tribal or clannish and group men with their inner vision of solidarity. (In soap operas a family was referred to as a clan such as the Ewing clan on 'Dallas').
"Today (1973), Western man is impelled inward by his electric services, even as Eastern man is moved to seek outer goals and objectives through his acquisition of our old Western hardware. A similar change which has taken place in our political lives is an aspect of living in a world of instant information. The old politics elected representatives who were associated with special attitudes viewpoints and parties directed toward change, all of which have tended to be played down by the new politics of a shared-service environment designed ecologically for permanence.
"The bureaucrats and experts in charge of the ecological service environment are the servants of the new 'hunting' population, the new electronic citizenry who create and exchange information as a way of life. The new politics is concerned less with participation than with anticipation, less with representation than with charismatic embodiment of special moods and needs."
In conclusion, Maurice McLuhan urged teachers in 1970, "If something has been said that you can use as a probe into the problem … Most people say of Marshall's ideas, 'Do you understand them?' Marshall says, 'These are probes. Use them.' You (the teachers) have really been a very, very wonderful group. When I came here (to UC), I felt like a mosquito at a nudist colony. I didn't know where to begin."
"Richard Nixon looked liked himself, just Nixon, so he was no good on the air. But Jimmy Carter is a tribal image, the first tribal president in American history. He looks like the typical big Southern boy, the guy with the fishing pole and straw hat. He has loads of charisma. He’s Huck Finn. Charisma, by the way, means looking like a lot of other people."
"The West is going East and inward, even as the East is going West and outward … Private, separate, individual Western man, with his outer objectives and goals, was long counterpointed against the third world of tribal or clannish and group men with their inner vision of solidarity. (In soap operas a family was referred to as a clan such as the Ewing clan on 'Dallas').
"Today (1973), Western man is impelled inward by his electric services, even as Eastern man is moved to seek outer goals and objectives through his acquisition of our old Western hardware. A similar change which has taken place in our political lives is an aspect of living in a world of instant information. The old politics elected representatives who were associated with special attitudes viewpoints and parties directed toward change, all of which have tended to be played down by the new politics of a shared-service environment designed ecologically for permanence.
"The bureaucrats and experts in charge of the ecological service environment are the servants of the new 'hunting' population, the new electronic citizenry who create and exchange information as a way of life. The new politics is concerned less with participation than with anticipation, less with representation than with charismatic embodiment of special moods and needs."
In conclusion, Maurice McLuhan urged teachers in 1970, "If something has been said that you can use as a probe into the problem … Most people say of Marshall's ideas, 'Do you understand them?' Marshall says, 'These are probes. Use them.' You (the teachers) have really been a very, very wonderful group. When I came here (to UC), I felt like a mosquito at a nudist colony. I didn't know where to begin."
