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A break down
DL — (archived)

As I recall, the famous McLuhan innovation in media analysis is to recognize that the medium itself is a conveyer of information and culture. It ties in with the (his?) whole notion auto-amputation(*). Cold media (If I recall they are intuitively reversed, as he was fond of doing with terms) is media that the relator/experiencer has to adapt a passive stance to, it requires that the expieriencer do virtually nothing in the way of information processing. Auto amputation of the higher function of the brain, if I recall, in a heavy-handed interpretation of it (again, over-simpifications and yada yada, but damned if I'm going to write a dissertation on this.)

Now, my point is that emotion is *A* medium of consciousness, but NOT its message- IE, not its content. In other-words, we say things or think things in emotional contexts, but those contexts themselves are not objectively meaningful in the information processing sense. They are a state of mind, for sure, and a part of mind, but they are not themselves the content of mind (thought). Emotional states can be shared and enjoyed, and shared and enjoyed together- but they are stage and molding clay for the thing that gives them their meaning and value- thought. IE, if we had emotion but no thought, the emotion would have no meaning.

Now, in your deep understanding, please show me how the hell I'm even alluding to Marshall Mcluhan? Really, I'm just f-ing dying to know how we get 'A is B' (mcluhan) from my statement of 'A IS NOT B'? Hmm? How does any logic work that way? Please explain.

(*) That innovations do not necessarily free us,nor are they 'man amplifiers'. We invent the car, but lose the knack of walking. We invent the pda/phone and loose our capacity for memory. etc

Mcluhan had a point up to a point. He belonged to that wave of academics in the 60's and 70's that were reacting to the techno-utopianism of the previous decades. My feeling is that just as the utopianists missed the downside of technology and media, McLuhan missed the upside. The point is, like everything in this universe, its a give and take. We did lose a pedestrian society and pedestrian cultural geography when we transitioned to the car, but we gained a mobile society and all the benefits that come with it. Technological innovations are merely events in cultural evolution. Of course mcluhan wasn't as simple as just a critic of technology, but taken as a whole, the framework of concepts he developed, referenced and extended paint a pretty dire picture of man-and-machine.

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