Reddit mentions of Media and Formal Cause

Pretty clumsy altogether. There's a bit too many 'half-quotes' and unfounded assertions (McLuhan as fascist? Nope). Here's just one--

>The same man who claimed, in 1963, that our era “is the greatest in human history” had been decrying, only a few years before,

The full quote (unless the article, which doesn't cite a source, is using a different one) is from 1968 in a televised panel interview with Malcolm Muggeridge, Norman Mailer & Robert Fulford:

>McLuhan: Well, for heaven’s sake, this present time we’re moving into, this electric age, is the dawn of much the greatest of all human ages. There’s nothing to even remotely resemble the scope of human
awareness and human –

>Fulford: Now that's a value judgment.

>McLuhan: No, this is quantity. Most people make their judgments in terms of quality. I’m merely saying, quantitatively, this is by far the greatest human age. What further valuations would you wish to make?

>Fulford: Oh, I thought when you said “greatest” you meant the finest, that is –

>McLuhan: No.

Just as Neil Postman, WIRED, Douglas Coupland and the rest of McLuhans 'disciples' (whether they are 'general semanticists' or 'transhumanists') did not understand him one bit, nor do his critics then or now.

Any confusion as to Marshall's intention with his work stemmed from his image. He was, at the heart of it, a Renaissance scholar who desperately sought after a return of Grammar school in the Trivial sense - as the millenium-spanning tradition of learning faded out of fashion in Queen Elizabeth's England.

>“I am resolutely opposed to all innovation, all change, but I am determined to understand what’s happening. Because I don’t choose just to sit and let the juggernaut roll over me. Many people seem to think that if you talk about something recent, you’re in favor of it. The exact opposite is true in my case. Anything I talk about is almost certainly something I’m resolutely against. And it seems to me the best way to oppose it is to understand it. And then you know where to turn off the buttons.”

Anybody who hopes to seriously understand where Marshall was coming from (still quite saliently) ought to read his PhD thesis, which was just recently published - along with Media & Formal Cause.

https://www.amazon.com/Media-Formal-Cause-Marshall-McLuhan/dp/0983274703

https://www.amazon.com/Classical-Trivium-Place-Thomas-Learning/dp/1584232358/ref=pd_sbs_14_t_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=QPXK93Q8BM41YR61KNCC

What's remarkable is that McLuhan (a Catholic convert) likely didn't realize how much his 'Tetrad' resembles Aquinas' critique of Averroes' interpretation of the Aristotelian 'Inner Senses'. The 'new science' presented in laws of media is very old indeed.

The 'retrieve' function is tied to memory (one of Aquinastotle's Inner Senses). This is 'continuity' - a process of Grammar :)

Some reading on the subject:

https://www.amazon.com/Media-Formal-Cause-Marshall-McLuhan/dp/0983274703
https://www.amazon.com/Laws-Media-Science-Marshall-McLuhan/dp/0802077153