26 March 2009
How Much Do You Know about McLuhan?
Filed under Aleatory Research
Simple test: are you surprised that he’s on this list?
2009-03-26 :: Jonathan
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26 March 2009
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29 March 2009 @ 12:51 pm
Were you? what’s even more surprising are the lists he is NOT on.
29 March 2009 @ 12:56 pm
I’m not sure that the people in media studies who are heavily influenced by McLuhan’s ideas have always thought through their political implication or context, which I read as being starkly opposed to the stances generally advocated by said media studies types.
30 March 2009 @ 8:58 am
I don’t want to misunderstand you but you seem to be saying that media studies scholars are liberals and they might not realize they are using the theories of a conservative? is that right?
30 March 2009 @ 9:23 am
More that the ideas themselves have a much more conservative provenance and tendency than is usually admitted. The tension is heightened by the fact that most of the media scholars I’m thinking of would consider themselves leftists, not liberals.
30 March 2009 @ 9:23 am
And, just to be clear, I’m pointing this out as part of my skepticism of McLuhan, not sympathy.
30 March 2009 @ 9:27 am
obviously this was not intended to be a longer article, but I’m curious–other than his situated conservatism what are you skeptical of in particular?
I’m writing on McLuhan quite a bit (not just on my blog, I mean professionally) and I’m curious to hear a solid leftist critique.
what is your distinction leftist/liberal? I agree that leftism is definitely at odds with classical liberalism but I’m wondering if we agree that they diverge at the same points?
30 March 2009 @ 3:05 pm
That he teaches complicity in effect, if not intent, is one perspective. That he embraced a guru-like cult-of-personality and lacked critical distance from his subject is another. (See Videodrome). That he encouraged laxness as a critical method is a broader, if not less substantive concern. His variety of technological determinism is also anathema to historical or cultural materialism in many ways.
30 March 2009 @ 7:21 pm
Hmm. Well I won’t argue with you on the “he’s not a materialist” piece. He presents another way of looking at history. I don’t think it necessarily is anathema, but it certainly proposes another view.
But encouraged laxness as a critical method? Really? That’s not how I read “the probe” at all–he was into a plurality of descriptors with various levels of explanatory power. Any one problem or idea could be looked at in multiple perspectives. To me that doesn’t seem lax. That seems exhaustive.
30 March 2009 @ 7:31 pm
Kenner, I believe, wrote that “one does not go to McLuhan for facts.” If the subject is so multifaceted or complex that it is impervious to factual analysis, his approach may be justified. You’d need to extend your credulity further than I’m willing to go along, however.
31 March 2009 @ 5:31 am
Kenner’s assesment is fair. But you don’t really go to Heidegger or Hegel for facts either, do you?
It’s an analysis of phenomena that some seem to think has great explanatory power. And in certain respects great predictive power.
Ech. He ain’t your bag, I guess. :)
Thanks for indulging me.