Another strange effect of this electric environment is the total absence of secrecy. What Nixon refers to as the confidentiality of his role and position is no longer feasible. No form of secrecy is possible at electric speed, whether in the patent world, in the fashion world, or in the political world. The pattern sticks out a mile before anybody says anything about it. At electric speed, everything becomes X-ray. Watergate is a nice parable or example of how secrecy was flipped into show business. The backroom boys suddenly found themselves on the stage. Political support for election purposes ceases to be confidential or quiet or secret. There's no way of having any form of secrecy in these matters. With the end of secrecy goes the end of monopolies of knowledge. There can no longer be a monopoly of knowledge in learning, in education, or in power.
Understanding Me, Lectures and Interviews (page 237-238)
Marshall McLuhan
Living at the Speed of Light
These remarks made on February 25, 1974. McLuhan gave a lecture to 2,000 people at the University of South Florida in Tampa.
The Mueller investigation has brought many comparisons to Watergate. McLuhan sees the issue as a function of the electric medium. Television dominated the electronic environment in 1974. The exposed confidential documents, from the Trump-Russia dossier on Trump activities in Russia to the Bradley/Chelsea Manning leak of American military data to Wikileaks to Russian hacks into Hillary Clinton, means secrecy is a thing of the past.
In 2018 we have a faster, more comprehensive electric environment. Social media and the 24/7 cycle and the rapid pace of Trump World make television and Watergate seem positively quaint by comparison. The talking heads compare Watergate and the Mueller investigation for political similarities and look for moral equivalencies. We had Republicans and Democrats working together in those days. No more. Why not? McLuhan sees the answer in the invisible technological environment surrounding us.
Trump, to his credit, figured out something about the electric environment that the rest of us have missed. He has a cult of personality and an informal speech style that entertains while creating controversy and a fracturing of the political landscape. His tweets supposedly offend but are read with relish, and repeated, by friend and foe alike. Trump may have been better served when tweets were limited to 140 characters. Trump's tweets have turned into essays, complete with spelling and grammatical errors.
We wonder if future politicians will employ some of Trump's tactics-- or if his administration is a one-off. Will partisanship ever recede? I don't know. The playbook has changed with the Trump presidency and his absolute dominance of the airwaves. Perhaps no politician will dominate us quite like Trump-- though Obama dominated during his tenure.
Obama's gentlemanly approach seemed mandatory. As the first black President, deemed controversial enough due to his skin color, Obama dared not stir the racial stew. If Hillary had won we can only imagine the anger that might have risen from her many detractors. It would have been ugly--maybe even uglier than we are experiencing. Unlike Trump, Hillary would have continued with the tone of past Presidents. But that will be harder.
The electric environment bristles with emotion and everybody getting into everybody else's business-- just like McLuhan predicted.
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