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Marshall McLuhan

Marshall McLuhan Quotes

Philosopher

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Famous Marshall McLuhan Quotes

“Once we have surrendered our senses and nervous systems to the private manipulation of those who would try to benefit from taking a lease on our eyes and ears and nerves, we don't really have any rights left. Leasing our eyes and ears and nerves to commercial interests is like handing over the common speech to a private corporation, or like giving the earth's atmosphere to a company as a monopoly.”

GivingTryingEyeEarthLeftInterestCommonCompanyRightsSpeechBenefitsEarsSensesNervousAtmosphereCorporationsManipulationNervesMonopolyNervous SystemLeaseHanding Over
Book:Understanding media: the extensions of man
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“Professionalism merges the individual into patterns of total environment. Amateurism seeks the development of the total awareness of the individual and the critical awareness of the groundrules of society. The amateur can afford to lose. The professional tends to classify and specialise, to accept uncritically the groundrules of the environment. The groundrules provided by the mass response of his colleagues serve as a pervasive environment of which he is contentedly unaware. The 'expert' is the man who stays put.”

MenIndividualLosesAcceptingEnvironmentAwarenessHe ManDevelopmentMassResponsePatternsCriticalExpertsColleaguesProfessionalism
Book:The medium is the massage: an inventory of effects
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“The copy of an ad is merely a punning gag to distract the critical faculties while the image of the product goes to work on the hypnotized viewer. Those who have spent their lives protesting about 'false and misleading ad copy' are godsends to advertisers, as teetotalers are to brewers, and moral censors are to books and films. The protesters are the best acclaimers and accelerators. Since the advent of pictures, the job of the ad copy is as incidental and latent as the 'meaning' of a poem is to a poem, or the words of a song are to a song.”

BookJobsFilmSongMoralProductsCriticalAdvertisingFacultyCopiesAdsViewersMisleadAdventLatentAdvertisersGagsBrewersTeetotalersPunning
Author:Marshall McLuhan
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“Any expensive ad represents the toil, attention, testing, wit, art, and skill of many people. Far more thought and care go into the composition of any prominent ad in a newspaper or magazine than go into the writing of their features and editorials.”

PeopleWritingArtCareAttentionAttitudeSkillsBuiltFoundationWitNewspapersAdvertisingMagazinesFeaturesExpensiveAdsCompositionStereotypeToilTestedTestingProminentEditorialsSkyscraperBedrock
Author:Marshall McLuhan
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“Today's child is bewildered when he enters the 19th century environment that still characterizes the educational establishment where information is scarce but ordered and structured by fragmented, classified patterns subjects, and schedules.”

ChildrenStillsTodayEnvironmentSubjectsCenturyInformationPatternsEducationalEstablishmentSchedulesScarce19th CenturyBewilderedFragmented
Book:The medium is the massage: an inventory of effects
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