The Texas-Stanford Seminar (1966)
The Texas-Stanford
Seminar on “The Meaning of Commercial Television,” a gathering of television broadcasters was held by the two universities
in 1966 with the ambitious goal "to help bring about the general improvement of
television.” TV Guide sponsored the conference. Marshall McLuhan was one of the headliners and Stanley Donner, a professor at the University of Texas, documented the seminar for a University of Texas Press publication. McLuhan, not
surprisingly, blew the assembled minds and Stanley Donner does a nice job capturing the
process. Donner reviews describes McL’s demeanor and
impact on the conference with a nice freshness. The information which follows comes from Donner's work. I’ll quote Donner from here (The Meaning of Commercial Television (1966)-- pages 108-110):
Marshall McLuhan’s
unusual views of the electronic media and their effects on society evoked
considerable interest among the broadcasters.
The audience was
particularly impressed by the concept that our present total environment is
invisible and produces a nostalgia for past environments—thus the popularity of
Bonanaza and, on a different level, Batman. Final judgment was suspended,
although many were persuaded in part by compelling arguments and equally
compelling examples from film, radio and television, and from cultural and
social changes in current society. The listeners were not sure where total
agreement might lead them: what kind of commitment they would be making. Also,
there was the suspicion that, although McLuhan’s argument was plausible, there
might be some hidden fault in the scheme which could nullify the whole theory.
McLuhan assisted this
suspended belief by not requiring any particular action from the audience. In
his view whether a person favors or opposes his ideas, or whether his ideas are
considered helpful, is completely beside the point. We are in the midst of electronic
circuitry where everything happens at once and the influences upon society are
inexorable. McLuhan’s concern was the description of electronic circuitry, not
its evaluation: and he described with considerable clairvoyance what is taking
place in our society at present.
The discussion
developed into a further explication of McLuhan’s ideas. He held the position
that in the electronic age no one is responsible and he used Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood as an example. This view
was disturbing to some in the audience, since its acceptance means that the
development of events in time must be denied and it would no longer be possible
to maintain a clear relationship between cause and effect in the fixing of
guilt.
McLuhan spoke of the
possible future of television in the world of electric circuitry. The
television would become a work force rather than consumers of programs as is
now the case. Problems of any kind could be presented to the audience and
possible answers obtained through the use of technology, which is even now in
experimental stage.
In response to a
question McLuhan described LSD as a dislocation from environment, in a sense a
medium. He did not, however, advocate its use.
To a question
concerning computers, McLuhan maintained that computers are really a method of
discovery. The use of computers to catalogue and categorize does not belong in
the world of electric circuitry, but rather to the world of clear relationships
of cause and effect of the nineteenth century. McLuhan also dismissed the
rating systems and the “numbers game” as belonging to nineteenth-century
cataloguing, and thus not truly relevant to television.
To another point
McLuhan answered that the only audience participation in television and movies
is fantasy. Reality in the old art sense of the term is meaningless in the
electric world. Reality of the outside as compared to inside fantasy has
disappeared, since the concept of outside and inside no longer exists.
