McLuhan Predicts Cellphone: New Yorker magazine, May 5, 1965

Marshall McLuhan’s prominence in the Sixties and early Seventies cannot easily be conceived from the remove of the present day.  The New Yorker magazine issue, May 5, 1965 features “The McLuhan Metaphor,” in the “The Talk of the Town” section. The piece was composed at the same time as the  the New York World’s Fair. 

The New Yorker journalist suggests Marshall McLuhan might be better employed as the Time Capsule for the era rather than using “cultural and technological mementos of twentieth-century man.” McLuhan actually taught us more about what was about to happen in the 21^stcentury.

My family visited the World’s Fair that year. I recall Ford and General Motors lavish futuristic exhibits. The two giant car manufacturers reflect the the mechanical age. —The exhibits imagined an automotive future with Jetsons-esque highways flying in every direction. The dioramas didn't portray gridlock, but you don't focus on the negative at a World's Fair exhibit. But McLuhan envisioned something different, an information age—and a massive change in consciousness.

The New Yorkerauthor describes McLuhan’s lecture at Spencer Memorial Church in Brooklyn and quotes several startling prophecies included in his remarks: 

“(He) predicted a happy day when everyone will have his own portable computer to cope with the dreary business of digesting information” and

“Dr. McLuhan next suggested the possibility of a new technology that would extend consciousness itself into the environment. ‘A kind of computerized ESP,’ he called it, envisioning ‘consciousness as the corporate content of the environment—and eventually maybe even a small portable computer, about the size of a hearing aid, that would process our private experience through the corporate experience, the way dreams do now.’”

McLuhan’s accurately prediction computers the size of cellphones or smaller. Marshall gets points for the accuracy of that alone, but the second insight--consciousness as the new environment-- cuts to the very essence of the present digital era.  McLuhan’s hearing aid- size device anticipates the iPhone pretty closely. Individuals study the phone and share experiences as a corporate entity creating a group consciousness. The posts are exactly as McLuhan described, personal, random thoughts offered in a dreamlike manner. McLuhan perceived the new electronic environment as consciousness— and no better description exists of the modern social network. 

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The 1965 The New Yorkerwriter notes McLuhan entered the scene as an author, “by three startling books on Western civilization-- The Mechanical Bride, The Gutenberg Galaxy, and most recently Understanding Media, in which he joyfully explores the tribal virtues of popular culture, casts a cynical eye on the ‘classification traditions’ that came in with print and sees near-mythic possibilities in our computer age.” (The New Yorker 1965)

Mcluhan’sUnderstanding Media  examines a different medium in every chapter and chapter 31, titled “Television,” commented on television’s highly participatory nature as a “cool medium.” Television’s language contrasted to “hot media” like print or movies with their tendency for “’spelling out’ of meanings.” (UM 319) Television’s message, conveyed in low density, left much room for participation of the viewer. 

He identified participation as a key differentiating factor between the print media and the electronic media. Print media, based on the visual sense, allowed for detachment and objectivity. Television shifted the audience to a multi-sensory experience, emphasizing the tactile and acoustic, and lead to in-depth engagement.

“Because the low definition of TV insures a high degree of audience involvement, the most effective programs are those that present situations which consist of some process to be completed.” (UM 319)

McLuhan’s predictions for deepened audience engagement following the shift from print media to electronic media cannot be overstated as essential to understanding the electronic environment. The inability of individuals to separate from the social network becomes more apparent by the day. As McLuhan somehow knew-- we have become enslaved.  FOMO or “fear of missing out” is society's most prevalent psychological addiction in 2018.

McLuhan’s notion of new technology working as extensions of the human body had achieved new levels of traction in the electronic era, for if clothing extended the skin, and the wheel extended the legs’ ability to achieve movement, “the computer achieved not merely an extension of our eyes, like print, but an extension of our whole nervous system.”  (New Yorker1965)

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ADHD World: my neighborhood and your neighborhood

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder-- ADHD, or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, is a medical condition that affects how well someone can sit still, focus, and pay attention. People with ADHD have differences in the parts of their brains that control attention and activity. This means that they may have trouble focusing on some tasks and subjects.

You may have been diagnosed with ADHD, or perhaps you have a friend who shows an inability to sit still. ADHD is not my natural inclination. I can read a book or enjoy a conversation with a friend without glancing at my cellphone every few minutes, but, like everybody else, I'm fast falling under the spell of an increasingly fast-moving environment.

Remember when the phrase "Breaking News" popped up on the CNN screen about every three months or so? Now all news is "Breaking News" and bursts forth with gusts of energy and alarm. We get treated to the image of Sean "the spiciest" Spicer, seems like every weekday. That's entertainment! Donald Trump,the King of ADHD, tweets at odd hours of the day or night, and lives his life absorbing media off of the television screen.

Remember "No Drama Obama" and the days of relative calm? The whirlwind seemed mainly from Obama's right wing detractors. Now the detractors are in power. The Republicans and, further to the right, the Breitbart crowd, Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Michael Savage, Alex Jones, et al, loved pulling Obama's hide to pieces from the safety of their own broadcast booths. It's so much harder to operate from the Oval Office. But, I'm getting distracted..

Not just a case of right wing/left wing... the social network, the electronic universe, the digital world has raised the rhythm of media to a dizzying pace. And the media environment, as McLuhan explains, is our environment. McLuhan explains that technology has lifted our brains and central nervous systems outside of our bodies-- through cellphones, etc.-- and made us vulnerable. We, you and I, have enlisted our central nervous systems in the electronic vortex and found it extremely addictive. Yes, that's your cellphone calling to you from the desk near your bedpost in the middle of the night.

As a result... all news is Breaking News, we are analyzing Trump's first 100 days after only 56 days, your kids know adult ways and have seen everything about sex by about age 10 while you are catching your Twitter feed, following Facebook friends, reading this blog and, whoops-- Sean Spicer is back with another press briefing. 

Caffeine and internet are the drugs of our era. Opioids, prescription painkillers, are the other drug in town, especially for the white working class in America. That segment of the population has seen their health suffer terribly, dying younger than their counterparts in the black and Hispanic population. 

So the educated classes are drinking coffee, learning tech skills, and studying computer screens, and prospering in this era of digital technology, while the poorer ones numb their bodies and minds from the pain. But one thing we all share-- nobody is capable of getting off the ADHD merry-go-round.

Seems like we're either revved up, on caffeine, or giving up, with opioid numbness. Is there a healthy alternative?

Identity Quest: what the hell is happening here?

Because something is happening here...
But you don't know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?

Ballad of a Thin Man
Highway 61 Revisited-- 1965
by: Bob Dylan

Right now it's not just Mister Jones that's feeling the heat of confusion. Madness seems to be flying around everywhere-- like pizza pies at a Papa John's kitchen on Super Bowl Sunday. How do we explain all this angst, so much sound and fury, so many Breaking News stories, wild tweets, counter-tweets and retweets. The talking heads have their hair nicely coiffed but there constant stream of words has taken on a new frantic quality, like the fabric of society is splitting faster than a fat man's pants after a 12-course meal. But the meal everybody is over-eating is the words racing across the glove: Brexit, Trump, building a wall, refugees, Muslims, hate crimes, racism, trolls, alt-right, Dems, GOP, Russian conspiracy, CIA, FBI, national debt, interest rate, student loans, Obamacare, Trump-don't-care, Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, bathrooms, New York Times, Beyonce, Lady-let's-all-go-Gaga, transgender, mind bender, hacker, and the beat goes on... But something's different.

The speed has moved up a few notches. The news cycle got shorter. We used to move at 33 1/3 rpm and now we're doing more than 45 rpm. Every face is turned towards their cellphone. Maybe future humans will have gracefully flowing fingers, with tiny points, the better to hit the keys with?

In times like this we should all turn to Marshall McLuhan. An easy entry point is his Playboy interview from March 1969. Google it. UC Davis has the text of the interview in pdf format.

McLuhan, as always, explains the powerful transition from the printed word (Gutenberg technology) to the age of electronic media. Therein lies the key to the kingdom-- the kernel of truth to explain the illusion we live in today, the vortex of electrons circling the globe thanks to satellite technology.

McLuhan described Fidel Castro as a new national leader of the television era:

"For one thing, it's creating a totally new type of national leader, a man who is much more of a tribal chieftain than a politician. Castro is a good example of the new tribal chieftain who rules his country by a mass-participational TV dialog and feedback; he governs his country by camera, by giving the Cuban people the experience of being directly and intimately involved in the process of collective decision making."

Does that ability to govern by television remind you of anybody? There's a new guy in town with a similar flair for mastery of electronic media. This guy has a more recent technological device in his hand, called a cellphone, but also communicates "directly and intimately" with his audience and creates a sense of "collective decision making." Yes, that would be Donald J. Trump and his weapon of choice is a cellphone and a Twitter account-- with 20 million followers. And Trump, despite his words to the contrary, is no enemy to television. Remember, he was the candidate available for every interview with every news outlet. And then Twitter became his ace in the hole.

So, don't be surprised if you find that you're flipping your whig-- suffering an identity crisis. You feel so close to everybody...  to close... it's like you're in love but, then again, you're alienated from half the world too and hate their guts. Mr. McLuhan has a solid explanation. I'll end with an extended quote from McLuhan since Marshall says it best.

PLAYBOY: Would you describe this detribalizing process in more detail?

McLUHAN: The electronically induced technological extensions of our central nervous system, which I spoke of earlier, are immersing us in a wold-pool of information movement and are thus enabling man to incorporate within himself the whole of mankind. The aloof and dissociated role of the literate man of the Western world is succumbing to the new, intense depth participation engendered by the electronic media and bringing us back in touch with ourselves as well as one another. But the instant nature of electric-information is decentralizing-- rather than enlarging-- the family of man into a new state of multitudinous tribal existences. Particularly in countries where literate values are deeply institutionalized, this is a highly traumatic process, since the clash of the old segmented visual culture and the new integral electronic culture creates a crisis of identity, a vacuum of the self, which generates tremendous violence-- violence that is simply an identity quest, private or corporate, social or commercial.

There you have it-- read the whole interview, Mister Jones... 'cause I guarantee you're gonna like it.

McLuhan Predicts Cellphone... and more (1965)

Marshall McLuhan, media guru of the late 1960s and 1970s, predicted the cellphone in 1965! McLuhan explained the significance of digital media prior to the invention of the personal computer and cellphone technology. Our evidence? An article from May 5, 1965 in The New Yorker magazine. The Talk of the Town column at the front of that issue features  a piece entitled “The McLuhan Metaphor .” The article’s publication coincided with the New York World’s Fair. You remember the World’s Fair in Flushing, Queens, with the famous Unisphere, the globe used in the movie Men in Black…? The globe is still there, not far from LaGuardia Airport and adjacent  to the U.S. Open tennis stadium. The globe is a perfect metaphor for the insights of Marshall McLuhan, the man who coined the phrase “global village” to define the world we now live in. But the real action that May was happening in Brooklyn, the next borough over, where McLuhan delivered a talk at a Presbyterian church.

The New Yorker author describes McLuhan’s lecture at Spencer Memorial Church in Brooklyn and quotes several startling prophecies included in his remarks: “(He) predicted a happy day when everyone will have his own portable computer to cope with the dreary business of digesting information.”

“Dr. McLuhan next suggested the possibility of a new technology that would extend consciousness itself into the environment. ‘A kind of computerized ESP,’ he called it, envisioning ‘consciousness as the corporate content of the environment—and eventually maybe even a small portable computer, about the size of a hearing aid, that would process our private experience through the corporate experience, the way dreams do now.’”

McLuhan’s accurate prediction of the personal computer and smaller portable devices merits no further explanation but the second insight--consciousness as the new environment-- cuts to the very essence of the present digital era.   Imagine the hearing aid device, anticipated by  McLuhan, as an iPhone or other mobile device. Every individual typing into a Facebook or Twitter application shares private experiences with the wider world, and McLuhan uses the term “corporate group” to indicate the wider world. The posts are exactly as McLuhan described, personal, random thoughts offered in a dreamlike manner. McLuhan perceived the new electronic environment as consciousness— and no better description exists of the modern social network.

The author mentions the plan of industrial giant Westinghouse to place a Time Capsule for future generations at the site of the  World’s Fair. The author suggests Marshall McLuhan might be better utilized as a better Time Capsule than a display of mere physical objects, “cultural and technological mementos of twentieth-century man.” The anonymous writer, in a brilliant feat of understatement,  suggests that McLuhan will teach us more about his era, than any of the lavish futuristic exhibits sponsored by Ford and General Motors. I visited those exhibits and remember the emphasis on automobiles buzzing around the superhighways of the future.  Of course, the ctual superhighway of the future became the Internet.

The 1965 The New Yorker writer notes McLuhan entered the scene as an author, “by three startling books on Western civilization-- The Mechanical Bride, The Gutenberg Galaxy, and most recently Understanding Media, in which he joyfully explores the tribal virtues of popular culture, casts a cynical eye on the ‘classification traditions’ that came in with print and sees near-mythic possibilities in our computer age.”

A year later, at the Texas-Stanford Seminar on “The Meaning of Commercial Television” in April 1966, McLuhan explained further. His audacious comments must have surprised the audience of media professionals and scholars:

1)   The western world organizes itself visually by connective, uniform and continuous space.

2)   Every new medium changes our whole spatial orientation.

3)   We are in the business of reprogramming the sensory life of North America, changing the entire outlook and experience of the population.     

                                                              

                                                                                    (Donner 90-93)

McLuhan’s predictions for deepened audience engagement following the shift from print media to electronic media cannot be overstated as essential to understanding the electronic environment. The inability of individuals to separate from the social network even has an acronym (FOMO) referring to a “fear of missing out.” McLuhan’s notion of new technology working as extensions of the human body had achieved new levels of traction in the electronic era, for if clothing extended the skin, and the wheel extended the legs’ ability to achieve movement, “the computer achieved not merely an extension of our eyes, like print, but an extension of our whole nervous system.”  (New Yorker 1965)

Texas Football Fervor and the Pigskin Shrine

A friend of mine taught me some of the fundamentals of American football, the kind with tackling and blocking. American football is played with an oblong ball made of pigskin. The game was designed for cool weather, a fall or autumn sport. Texas has almost no fall or autumn weather and games are often played in 90-100 degree heat, especially in the first half of the season from Sept-Oct.

Most mysterious is the cult-like fascination with the sport. People in Texas or should I say... many Texans love the game. And Americans from coast-to-coast love the game.

Interestingly, football is such a violent game most people prefer watching the game, talking about the game, analyzing the game, its players and coaches and strategies, far more than they like playing the game. Football, most would agree, hurts to play. Playing and getting hurt or injured are not two activities we usually place side-by-side. Injury reports are a big part of football. They talk about players recovering or "getting healthy" but these are young men in their physical prime. They were already "healthy" until they played in a football game. They don't miss games because of illness-- a cold, flu, or pneumonia. They miss games because of orthopedic injury-- serious blows to the head, limbs, knees, neck, shoulders, etc. etc. So why do people love the game so much?

Perhaps there is the primitive appeal of big, strong man running into each other with unbelievable force? That is probably an over-simplification. The intellectual side of football is significant. Coaches, like good CEOs, must assemble a large number of players, at least 22 athletes getting starting roles in the game-- and many more than that when you add special teams players-- like kickers, receivers, etc.. The coaches use complicated plays to add to their teams effectiveness. The game has moved to a lightning pace-- and teams communicate plays from the sidelines in a matter of seconds. The slower team is often the losing team.

Marshall McLuhan, my favorite media philosopher, correctly predicted football would supersede baseball as the national pastime. McLuhan recognized that football had multiple activities occurring simultaneously-- and all of them could be nicely sorted out by the television cameras. The plays are slowed down and analyzed during instant replays. The replay for the national viewing audience involves the audience in the game for a great, in-depth experience. Baseball, McLuhan said, was too linear-- the game moves forward only based on the batter hitting the ball and does not reflect the all-at-onceness of modern communications.

Do we love football for its multi-tasking intensity? For its photogenic nature on the moving images of the TV screen? Those going to the stadium celebrate with tailgating-- cooking big slabs of meat, like ancient tribesmen celebrating the kill of an animal by the tribe's hunters. The sweet smells of cooked meat waft from the parking lots and open areas as you approach the stadium. You cannot help but feel the primal appeal. The crowd's emotions surge forward and rise from the stadium-- a roar of excitement like nothing you've ever heard before. And it all happens in the fall days, the summer harvest has passed, the crops collected, and celebration is in order.

TV... bypasses the ballot box!

The TV image ends all national and party politics.

Way back in 1968, Marshall McLuhan predicted that "TV bypasses the ballot box" and "ends party politics."  

Everybody, including the talking heads, wonders "how did Trump make progress toward the Republican nomination without party support?" 

Saturday Evening Post (August 10, 1968)      

All of the Candidates are Asleep         

By: Marshall McLuhan


But in a deep sense, TV bypasses the ballot box as a means of creating political "representatives." TV is  not concerned with view or interests or issues. It is a maker and finder of images that ride over all points of view and over all age-groups as well. The TV image ends all national and party politics.

McLuhan Predicts Cellphone (The New Yorker, May 5, 1965)

Marshall McLuhan’s prominence as the world’s foremost intellectual  cannot easily be conceived from the remove of the present day. A piece from “The Talk of the Town” column, at the front end of the The New Yorker magazine issue, May 5, 1965, entitled “The McLuhan Metaphor,” was  composed at the same time as the  the New York World’s Fair. The author mentions the Westinghouse company’s plan to place a Time Capsule for future generations at the World's Fair and suggests McLuhan himself could better serve as a time capsule. 

My family visited the World’s Fair that year. I recall lavish futuristic exhibits sponsored by Ford and General Motors,  two industrial companies representing a mechanical age. Their exhibits imagined an automotive future with Jetsons-style highways flying in every direction. But McLuhan envisioned something different, an information age—and a massive change in consciousness.

The New Yorker author describes McLuhan’s lecture at Spencer Memorial Church in Brooklyn and quotes several startling prophecies included in his remarks:

“(He) predicted a happy day when everyone will have his own portable computer to cope with the dreary business of digesting information” and

“Dr. McLuhan next suggested the possibility of a new technology that would extend consciousness itself into the environment. ‘A kind of computerized ESP,’ he called it, envisioning ‘consciousness as the corporate content of the environment—and eventually maybe even a small portable computer, about the size of a hearing aid, that would process our private experience through the corporate experience, the way dreams do now.’”

McLuhan’s accurate prediction of computers, cellphone-sized and smaller, merits no further explanation but the second insight--consciousness as the new environment-- cuts to the very essence of the digital era.  The hearing aid device anticipates the iPhone or other mobile device. Individuals study the phone and share experiences as a corporate entity creating a group consciousness and posts are exactly as McLuhan described-- personal, random thoughts offered in a dreamlike manner. McLuhan perceived the new electronic environment as consciousness— and no better, more succinct description of the modern social network has ever been offered.

McLuhan’s notion of new technology working as extensions of the human body achieves new levels of traction in the electronic era, for if clothing extended the skin, and the wheel extended the legs’ ability to achieve movement, “the computer achieved not merely an extension of our eyes, like print, but an extension of our whole nervous system.”  (New Yorker 1965)