“We are no more prepared to encounter radio and TV in our literate milieu than the native of Ghana is able to cope with the literacy that takes him out of his collective tribal world and beaches him in individual isolation.”

xx
1960s, Understanding Media (1964)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "We are no more prepared to encounter radio and TV in our literate milieu than the native of Ghana is able to cope with …" by Marshall McLuhan?

Marshall McLuhan416

Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor … 1911–1980

Related quotes

“Literacy, in translating man out of the closed world of tribal depth and resonance, gave man an eye for an ear and ushered him into a visual open world of specialized and divided consciousness.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

1960s, The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962)

“Our "society" is not a community, but merely a collection of isolated family units. Desperately insecure, fearing his woman will leave him if she's exposed to other men or to anything remotely resembling life, the male seeks to isolate her from other men and from what little civilization there is, so he moves her out to the suburbs, a collection of self-absorbed couples and their kids. Isolation, further, enables him to try to maintain his pretense of being an individual by being a "rugged individualist", a loner, equating non-co-operation and solitariness with individuality.”

Valerie Solanas (1936–1988) American radical feminist and writer. Attempted to assassinate Andy Warhol.

Source: SCUM MANIFESTO (1967), p. 7 (line break in "non-"/"co-operation").

“We are numb in our new electric world as the native involved in our literate and mechanical culture.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

Source: 1960s, Understanding Media (1964), p. 16

“The evolution of our individual consciousness paves the way toward the evolution of our collective consciousness. This individual-collective evolution, more than anything else, can and must change this world.”

Ervin László (1932) Hungarian musician and philosopher

Source: You Can Change the World (2003), p. 68.

“Literacy, the visual technology, dissolved the tribal magic by means of its stress on fragmentation and specialization and created the individual.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

1990s and beyond, "The Agenbite of Outwit" (1998)

“What a person is for himself, what abides with him in his loneliness and isolation, and what no one can give or take away from him, this is obviously more essential for him than everything that he possesses or what he may be in the eyes of others…”

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher

“We are numb in our new electric world as the native involved in our literate and mechanical culture. (p. 16)”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

1960s, Understanding Media (1964)

“It is difficult for the isolated individual to work himself out of the immaturity which has become almost natural for him.”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

What is Enlightenment? (1784)
Context: It is difficult for the isolated individual to work himself out of the immaturity which has become almost natural for him. He has even become fond of it and for the time being is incapable of employing his own intelligence, because he has never been allowed to make the attempt. Statutes and formulas, these mechanical tools of a serviceable use, or rather misuse, of his natural faculties, are the ankle-chains of a continuous immaturity. Whoever threw it off would make an uncertain jump over the smallest trench because he is not accustomed to such free movement. Therefore there are only a few who have pursued a firm path and have succeeded in escaping from immaturity by their own cultivation of the mind.

“The point is that racism is the product of tribalism and ignorance and both are falling victim to communications and world-around literacy.”

Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor and futurist

As quoted in "The View from the Year 2000" http://books.google.com/books?id=kVMEAAAAMBAJ&q=%22Pollution+is+nothing+but+resources+we're+not+harvesting+We+allow+them+to+disperse+because+we've+been+ignorant+of+their+value%22&pg=PA52#v=onepage by Barry Farrell in LIFE magazine (26 February 1971)<br>Statement made in 1974, quoted in People magazine. In Thomas T. K. Zung, "Buckminster Fuller: Anthology for the New Millenium" (2002), 174. <br class="br">1970s <br class="br">Context: Pollution is nothing but resources we're not harvesting. We allow them to disperse because we've been ignorant of their value. But if we got onto a planning planning basis, the government could trap pollutants in the stacks and spillages and get back more money than this would cost out of the stockpiled chemistries they'd be collecting.<br>Margaret Mead gets cross with me when I talk like this because she says people are doing some very important things because they're worried and excited and I'm going to make them relax and stop doing those things. But we're dealing with something much bigger than we're accustomed to understanding, we're on a very large course indeed. You speak of racism, for example, and I tell you that there's no such thing as race. The point is that racism is the product of tribalism and ignorance and both are falling victim to communications and world-around literacy.

“However well-meaning and strong the individual man may be (if he could only use his strength), he still has not the passion to be able to tear himself from the coils and seductive uncertainty of reflection. Nor do his surroundings supply the events or produce the general enthusiasm necessary in order to free him. Instead of coming to his help, his milieu forms around him a negative intellectual opposition, which juggles for a moment with a deceptive prospect, only to deceive him in the end by pointing to a brilliant way out of the difficulty-by showing him that the shrewdest thing of all is to do nothing.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

The Present Age and of the Difference Between a Genius and an Apostle, translated by Alexander Dru (1962)
1840s, Two Ages: A Literary Review (1846)

“We are no more prepared to encounter radio and TV in our literate milieu than the native of Ghana is able to cope with the literacy that takes him out of his collective tribal world and beaches him in individual isolation.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Marshall McLuhan416

Related quotes

Related topics