Mr. McLuhan reminded me why I love the humanities. That being said, I would like to first, express my profound sense of enlightenment provided by his writing, and second, offer an explanation as to why I had such an epiphany while reading his words.
On the first note, this reading showed me not only McLuhan's thoughts on a matter, but a great deal of his mentality. Here is a man who is brilliant and has the capacity to turn the world upside down with an idea. "The medium is the message." It's not that he may be right or wrong about what he thinks, but that he has an innate curiosity and sensibility towards the world, and the capacity to connect the dots, bring it all together, question the very fabric of nature and society...squint past the facts and see reality; offer an explanation, without permission, without pride. An attitude of humble, yet sharp observation, very akin to Paul Goodman's or Noam Chomsky's, two of my personal heroes.
Concerning his actual message, that "the medium is the message," I believe that he provides a fair amount of logical--and even amusing--examples as to how his interpretation works. The case he makes for the light bulb is powerful, for he re-introduces this technology to the reader according to his vision: the light-bulb is in fact a medium, one without content in and of itself, but a medium after all. Taken that as a starting point, we can see how the light bulb, and not necessarily its "uses" or "content," produced a revolution in human civilization and a profound change in our psyche, society and relations with nature. Analogically, it is TV, writing, speech... that offers the "message," i.e, the purpose, the substance that drives our evolution, decisions and affects. Effect, that is what matters, and that is what "content" tries to conceal. On a personal level, I never thought about medium and effect/message in a very conscious way, although I suspect this notion was just underneath some of my deepest thought sessions. I sincerely agree, and think that it makes sense. Content as he uses the concept, is irrelevant in the larger narrative of humanity. Putting a medium to a moral test (we can use it for good or bad) is being insensible to what is going on in the world, and provides for all kinds of ambiguities which further disguise the central issues and questions.
As far as "hot" and "cold" mediums are concerned, I believe that his use of these concepts is highly debatable. Sometimes, the choices seem arbitrary based on his own definitions which are in fact quite solid, but can also be freely used, even by the author himself. These concepts do provide a fairly reasonable system for analyzing different mediums and comparing their effect, which again, is what matters. However, the classification of TV as a cool medium along with his reasons is not logical, at least not immediately.His generalizations on how "cool" and "hot" societies react to likewise kinds of mediums also seem to assume a great deal of facts, disregarding many cultural aspects particularity to each individual society. However, his argument and definitions allow for a more case by case study of effects.
For my video, a funny Woody Allen moment... McLuhan shows up! Both the medium master and the master of mediums come together!
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