This is Marshall McLuhan: The Medium is the Massage (1967) [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QL_9JKKj-xE

by dang • 11 years ago

86 27 11 years ago

Cloudy2• 11 years ago

Something that really opened my eyes to thinking about the design of everyday things was "Objectified" (2009), a documentary on industrial/product design.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9E2D2PaIcI

cyphunk2• 11 years ago

Could you expand on why this film came to your mind in this context. I also saw objectified but felt it was, to put lightly, a fluff self-glorification by designers.

Cloudy2• 11 years ago

We are immersed in the various mediums present in our daily life and being aware of the medium itself and what limitations or potentialities are available from that medium will demystify these otherwise mundane ubiquitous things we encounter everywhere.

In the context of "The Medium is the Massage", I brought up (industrial) design because physical products are a major part of our daily lives and I never really gave much thought as to how a tooth brush or a Macbook was developed and built. Yeah Objectified had a fair amount of self-glorification of the designer egos, but before I saw the film I had no real concept of who was behind all the stuff that I use in my daily life.

ploxiln• 11 years ago

I had never actually seen this video, and when seeing references to it, even as I clicked this link, my eyes always saw "Massage" as "Message".

Silly brain... subconsciously thinking "The Medium is the Message" somehow made more sense as the intended title.

makmanalp• 11 years ago

You're not the only one :)

McLuhan frequently punned on the word "message", changing it to "mass age", "mess age", and "massage"; a later book, The Medium Is the Massage was originally to be titled The Medium is the Message, but McLuhan preferred the new title, which is said to have been a printing error.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_medium_is_the_message

dang2• 11 years ago

You were right the first time. "The medium is the message" was one of the pithy statements from Understanding Media (1964) that made McLuhan's name. The other variants of the phrase are all just plays on the first.

It's typical of McLuhan that he pretended the word "massage" was by design when in fact it was a typo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QL_9JKKj-xE#t=2m15s.

dang2• 11 years ago

Found via http://dangerousminds.net/comments/this_is_marshall_mcluhan, which is worth reading for background.

blumkvist3• 11 years ago

Thanks for the share. Really appreciate it!

researcher88• 11 years ago

Terrence McKenna's lecture on McLuhan is also excellent-

https://youtu.be/9dROH6aOIUc

anigbrowl• 11 years ago

I absolutely recommend people read the book. It's not a light read, but it's startling how well McLuhan anticipated the internet era.

Almaviva• 11 years ago

On a slightly different note, the musical version is nice too: https://vimeo.com/8022406

solocshaw• 11 years ago

I was introduced to McLuhan after I read Baudrillard's "America". Even though Baudrillard's written off as an obscurantist I still think the essay gives rich descriptions of the otherwise prosaic.

I mean, there's a part where he just talks about American deserts. He goes on to describe a gas station's lights always being on noting the temporariness of buildings like it.

look_lookatme• 11 years ago

Another writer that had a bead on the way we live now was Debord. I think it's absolutely worth thumbing through The Society of the Spectacle [1] just as an exercise in contextualizing the modern life. Different writers/theorists for sure, but worthy of consideration.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Society_of_the_Spectacle

damontal• 11 years ago

Well I happen to have Mr. McLuhan right here...

da02• 11 years ago

In case anyone is wondering:

Woody Allen says those words in a movie... and McLuhan shows up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXJ8tKRlW3E

hellbanner• 11 years ago

It's a great book, too.

shanes• 11 years ago

So many quotable quotes in this video. Thank you HN'r dang for submitting it.

Marshall McLuhan was the man. I really liked his blend of truth-seeking mixed with his helping attitude. He was completely open, willing to tell anyone his views. A very brave man because he was unafraid to sound foolish. He struck out on his own path and spoke up, even though he suffered from stammering, but he knew enough words and handy phrases to bypass that verbal disability with ease.

I've read McLuhan's corpus, from beginning to end, yet every time I see him speak, his words, so carefully selected, become a revelation once again.

Can we have another McLuhan now, please? For our time? No. There's only one Marshall McLuhan. Just like there's only one genius of every type and age of their time, we'll not see his kind again for a long time. Thank goodness this man was with us, wrote so many books, was not unwilling to be recorded for posterity. A pioneer whose message has yet to be understood.

giarc• 11 years ago

I imagine most Canadians will know who Marshall McLuhan is simply because of the [Heritage Minute](https://www.historicacanada.ca/content/heritage-minutes/mars...). People often question government spending money on things like this, but the fact that I, and many Canadians remember it 20 years later tells me it works.

zak_mc_kracken• 11 years ago

"Massage", really?

How could both the video poster and OP mess up this quote?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_medium_is_the_message

sowhatquestion• 11 years ago

Uh... did you read the article you just linked?

"McLuhan frequently punned on the word 'message', changing it to 'mass age', 'mess age", and 'massage'; a later book, The Medium Is the Massage was originally to be titled The Medium is the Message, but McLuhan preferred the new title, which is said to have been a printing error."

bayesianhorse2• 11 years ago

Don't underestimate "19th century factory style" school systems. I think it's dangerous how fast rote memorization is put aside, when it's the only reliable means of reproducibly teaching certain topics.

On the other hand, deep learning researchers now make their neural networks memorize and reproduce their input, in order to better understand and deal with the data. There's a lesson to be learned here!

blumkvist3• 11 years ago

You missed his point entirely. It is that a child cannot see the purpose/usefulness of what he/she is learning at school.

Sounds familiar?

bayesianhorse2• 11 years ago

Why does purpose/usefulness matter? Dumbing down and restricting a curriculum to what is obviously "useful" is equally bad.

dredmorbius• 11 years ago

I'd very strongly recomment McLuhan's student, Neil Postman, and his books, Amusing Ourselves to Death and Technopoly.

http://www.powells.com/s?author=Neil%20Postman

pnathan• 11 years ago

It is extremely worth pondering the different media we deal in and how they affect our use of them. The tools shape the user.

This is particularly relevant in the age of Medium, Twitter, and reddit. How do you pick apart each medium and understand how it impresses a certain modality of use and thought onto the creator/consumer divide? That is not a small question.

This is Marshall McLuhan: The Medium is the Massage (1967) [video]

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