“The unformulated message of an assembly of news items from every quarter of the globe is that the world today is one city. All war is civil war. All suffering is our own.”

—  Marshall McLuhan

Source: 1990s and beyond, A McLuhan Sourcebook (1995), p. 291

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 14, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The unformulated message of an assembly of news items from every quarter of the globe is that the world today is one ci…" by Marshall McLuhan?
Marshall McLuhan photo
Marshall McLuhan 416
Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor … 1911–1980

Related quotes

Karl Jaspers photo

“Today war seems to have undergone a change of meaning, insofar as it is not a war of religion but a war of interests, not a war of conflicting cultures or civilizations but a war of national areas, not a war of human beings but a technical struggle of machines one against another and all against the non–combatant population.”

Karl Jaspers (1883–1969) German psychiatrist and philosopher

Man in the Modern Age (1933)

François Fénelon photo

“All wars are civil ones; for it is still man spilling his own blood, tearing out his own bowels.”

François Fénelon (1651–1715) Catholic bishop

Toutes les guerres sont civiles; car c'est toujours l'homme contre l'homme qui répand son propre sang, qui déchire ses propres entrailles.
Dialogues des morts, ch. 17, cited from De l'éducation des filles, Dialogues des morts et opuscules divers (Paris: Firmin Didot, 1857) p. 149; translation from Mr. Elphingston (trans.) Dialogues of the Dead, Together with Some Fable Composed for the Education of a Prince (Glasgow: Robert and Andrew Foulis, 1754) vol. 1, p. 87. (1700).

Lynn Compton photo

“To try to distinguish between our objectives in World War II and the war we are fighting today- that one war was justified and the other isn't- is a complete fallacy. All wars are wars of choice. The Revolutionary War was a war of choice- we could have stayed British subjects if we had wanted. Equally so, we could have chosen not to fight World War II if we had wanted. But there were compelling reasons to fight both the Revolutionary War and World War II, as there are compelling reasons to fight the war against terror today.”

Lynn Compton (1921–2012) Easy Company soldier turned noted jurist

Source: Call of Duty: My Life Before, During and After the Band of Brothers (2008), p. 250

James M. McPherson photo

“The bottom line in the Civil War, after all is said and done, showed that every Confederate state was a slave state and every free state was a Union state. These facts were not a coincidence, and every Civil War soldier knew it.”

James M. McPherson (1936) American historian

North & South Magazine http://thecivilwarhomepagediscussion2824.yuku.com/forum/getrefs/id/16744/type/0 (January 2008), Vol. 10, No. 4, p. 59
2000s

Leon Trotsky photo

“What, however, is our relation to revolution? Civil war is the most severe of all forms of war. It is unthinkable not only without violence against tertiary figures but, under contemporary technique, without murdering old men, old women and children… There is no impervious demarcation between ‘peaceful’ class struggle and revolution. Every strike embodies in an unexpanded form all the elements of civil war.”

Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) Marxist revolutionary from Russia

Their Morals and Ours (1938)

“The civil war in Syria is the worst humanitarian tragedy of our generation and one that our government, and the world, is failing to deal with adequately.”

Jo Cox (1974–2016) UK politician

Jo Cox MP welcomes announcement that 100 refugees will land in Kirklees http://www.batleynews.co.uk/news/local/jo-cox-mp-welcomes-announcement-that-100-refugees-will-land-in-kirklees-1-7519060 (16 October 2015)

Norman Mailer photo

“What were the phenomena of the world today? If I knew little else, I knew the answer — war, and the preparations for new war.”

Norman Mailer book Barbary Shore

Michael Lovett, in Ch. 18
Barbary Shore (1951)

Will Rogers photo

“You can't say civilization don't advance, however, for in every war they kill you in a new way.”

Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer

The Autobiography of Will Rogers (1949)
Variant: You can't say that civilization don't advance, however, for in every war they kill you in a new way.

Vera Stanley Alder photo

“This century has seen world war for the first time. It has seen a world civilization threatened with self-destruction, not only through war but through the exploitation of all the kingdoms in nature...”

Vera Stanley Alder (1898–1984) British artist

Source: Humanity Comes of Age, A study of Individual and World Fulfillment (1950), Introduction p. I - XII

Linus Pauling photo

“Nobody wins. Nobody benefits from destructive war of this sort and there is all of this human suffering.”

Linus Pauling (1901–1994) American scientist

Interview at Big Sur, California http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/printmember/pau0int-1 (11 November 1990).
1990s
Context: I realized that more and more I was saying, "It seems to me that we have come to the time war ought to be given up. It no longer makes sense to kill 20 million or 40 million people because of a dispute between two nations who are running things, or decisions made by the people who really are running things. It no longer makes sense. Nobody wins. Nobody benefits from destructive war of this sort and there is all of this human suffering." And Einstein was saying the same thing of course. So that is when we decided — my wife and I — that first, I was pretty effective as a speaker. Second, I better start boning up, studying these other fields so that nobody could stand up and say, "Well, the authorities say such and such "

Related topics