Quote

A new medium is never an addition to an old one, nor does it leave the old one in peace. It never ceases to oppress the older media until it finds new shapes and positions for them.

Marshall McLuhan

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Marshall McLuhan
Age: 69 †
Born: 1911
Born: July 21
Died: 1980
Died: December 31
Literary Critic
Philosopher
Sociologist
University Teacher
Writer
Edmonton
Alberta
Herbert Marshall McLuhan
Marshall MacLuhan
Marshall Mac Luhan
Leave
Addition
Position
Positions
Media
Medium
Peace
Mediums
Doe
Finds
Never
Cease
Older
Oppress
Shapes
Ceases

More quotes by Marshall McLuhan

Image
The medium is the message. This is merely to say that the personal and social consequences of any medium - that is, of any extension of ourselves - result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology.
Marshall McLuhan
Image
If the work of the city is the remaking or translating of man into a more suitable form than his nomadic ancestors achieved, then might not our current translation of our entire lives into the spiritual form of information seem to make of the entire.
Marshall McLuhan
Image
What goes on inside the school is an interruption of education.
Marshall McLuhan
Image
The content or message of any particular medium has about as much importance as the stenciling on the casing of an atomic bomb.
Marshall McLuhan
Image
Anything that's popular is a rear-view image.
Marshall McLuhan
Image
Such is the content of the mental life of the Hemingway hero and the good guy in general. Every day he gets beaten into a servile pulp by his own mechanical reflexes, which are constantly busy registering and reacting to the violent stimuli which his big, noisy, kinesthetic environment has provided for his unreflective reception.
Marshall McLuhan
Image
Today, the mass audience (the successor to the public) can be used as a creative, participating force. It is, instead, merely given packages of passive entertainment. Politics offers yesterday's answers to today's questions.
Marshall McLuhan
Image
The school system is the homogenizing hopper into which we toss our integral tots for processing.
Marshall McLuhan
Image
The young today cannot follow narrative but they are alert to drama. They cannot bear description but they love landscape and action.
Marshall McLuhan
Image
The family circle has widened. The worldpool of information fathered by the electric media--movies, Telstar, flight--far surpassesany possible influence mom and dad can now bring to bear. Character no longer is shaped by only two earnest, fumbling experts. Now all the world's a sage.
Marshall McLuhan
Image
I do not explain, I explore.
Marshall McLuhan
Image
Today we are beginning to notice that the new media are not just mechanical gimmicks for creating worlds of illusion, but new languages with new and unique powers of expression.
Marshall McLuhan
Image
The news automatically becomes the real world for the TV user and is not a substitute for reality, but is itself an immediate reality.
Marshall McLuhan
Image
The movie, by sheer speeding up of the mechanical, carried us from the world of sequence and connections into the world of creative configurations and structure.
Marshall McLuhan
Image
Historians and archaeologists will one day discover that the ads of our time are the richest and most faithful reflections that any society ever made of its entire range of activities.
Marshall McLuhan
Image
I don't necessarily agree with everything I say.
Marshall McLuhan
Image
Any loss of identity prompts people to seek reassurance and rediscovery of themselves by testing, and even by violence. Today, the electric revolution, the wired planet, and the information environment involve everybody in everybody to the point of individual extinction.
Marshall McLuhan
Image
Attention spans get very weak at the speed of light, and that goes along with a very weak identity.
Marshall McLuhan
Image
Nowadays there is no conversation at all. Teachers distrust talk as much as business men.
Marshall McLuhan
Image
It's misleading to suppose there's any basic difference between education & entertainment. This distinction merely relieves people of the responsibility of looking into the matter.
Marshall McLuhan